Line in the Blood
by April Feldspar
Summary: Set in the AU universe of The Arrangement series as a direct sequel to Seeds of an Empire. When former admiral Marcus refuses to disclose his clandestine dealings as Head of Starfleet to anyone but his daughter, Carol has to return to Earth to confront her past and her father, while keeping a secret of her own.
1. Chapter 1

**Line in the Blood**

A/N: the Ceti Alpha star exists in reality; it's a red giant in the constellation of Cetus. Menkar is its traditional name.

"The head is not more native to the heart,  
The hand more instrumental to the mouth,  
Than is the throne of Denmark to thy father."

(William Shakespeare, _Hamlet_)

# # #

_He stared at the double mirror that occupied the entire wall in front of the bed, to which he was strapped. He could not see her, but he knew she was there – the woman who had given birth to him, the one he was not allowed to call 'mother'. The needle slipped into this wrist. The sting was so familiar, he barely noticed it anymore. The chill traveled up his arm and slowly crept into the rest of his body. The pain would start soon and he would struggle against his binds, but it would be no use, since they had been altered to resist even his strength. But he kept his eyes on the glass, murmuring her name over and over game, drawing heart from her presence, even if he was aware she wasn't there for him but rather to observe the experiment currently being performed. _

_Unbearable heat stabbed at his arm, replacing the cold. The pain mounted. He twisted and twitched, though there was no escape. At least, it was him being submitted to this and not one of his brothers and sisters. His mouth went dry and his own heart-beat was thunderous in his ears. It hurt... . It hurt worse than before. His eyes never strayed from the mirror. She was there. She had to be there. _

"_Mother," he screamed the name he had no reason or permission to use. _

# # #

Khan's snapped awake in the familiar surroundings of his and his wife's bedroom on the augment colony located 220 light-years away from Earth. It was three centuries later. Instinctively he rolled to the side, searching for Carol, longing for the comfort of having her near, only to recall dimly that she was on Nausicaa with Otto to acquire components necessary for their ground defense systems. He closed his eyes and pulled her pillow to his chest and squeezed it tightly. It was over. It had been over for three hundred years and he had come a long way since that terrified little boy. Doctor Sarina Kaur, the woman who had birthed him, was dead too. Unlike with the chief of the lab, he had not killed her and went to great lengths to prevent other augments from doing it themselves. She had died in the entanglements that had marked the beginning of the Eugenics Wars.

But Carol was alive, so vibrant and loving, and all his. She would come back to him. Carol always came back to him.

# # #

Kati stared despondently at the rotten root of the dead tomato plant. Even in a glass-house environment, the soils available on Menkar were not kind to Earth-born vegetables. She would have to put dirt samples on the list of things to buy the next time someone left their system. She was plugging out the dried-out plants and dumping them into the compost basin, when the computer in her tiny office at the back of the facility chirped to alert her of an incoming call. She spared one more dejected glance at the uneven mass in the processor before pulling the coverlet over it and sealing it shut. Then she sprinted away, removing her dirty gloves as she did and scrubbing a hand over her sweaty face.

Once in her office, she pressed a few keys on her upright terminal one with one hand, while using the other to grab the bottle of water from the tiny folding table sticking out of the nearby wall. She used the space as an observation point for the development of her main glass-house and so saw no reason to have in there anything besides the bare minimum, but right now after spending almost the entirety of one of the 39-hours long Menkar days trying to salvage her fifth attempt at growing tomatoes, she wished she had a chair around to rest her aching back and legs. Her muscles burnt and felt over-stretched. She rotated her head to encourage the flow of blood in her throbbing neck and nape and very nearly choked on her water, when the face of Christophe Pike filled the screen.

Kati coughed, cheeks flaming. He cocked his head slightly to the side and smiled, amusement and warmth filling his bright blue eyes. There was something about him that often made her act uncharacteristically gauche in his presence. Though not related by blood, she had always regarded her fellow augments as brother and sisters and acted accordingly around them – carelessly and on the tomboyish side. It was more than a little ridiculous that at her age and given everything she had been through, a mere human could unsettle her without even trying.

"Are you alright?" Chris asked kindly.

Kati battled the desire for the ground to open and swallow her whole. "Fine," she muttered, gesturing a bit more widely than it was wise with a open bottle of liquid. "It's just... the water." That had come out a lot less coherent than she had planned.

His smile bloomed into a bemused grin. Kati could not help but grin back. She put the water out of reach, only then realizing with a sinking feeling that she was still dressed and looking like she had been doing what she had been doing: crawling through dirt and disposing of rotten vegetables. Her old, loose-hanging T-shirt was stained; her pants were caked with mud and wilted leaves. Her hair was trapped in a messy pony-tale and she probably had more dead greenery in it. By contrast, he was impeccable in the uniform he was rarely out of, when he called her from Earth.

"How are you?" she asked quickly to cover up her embarrassment.

"I'm alright," he said, looking down a the table before him before lifting his luminous gaze to her again. "Kati, this isn't altogether a social call. I've been trying to reach Carol Marcus for a few days now without any luck."

"She's off planet. You won't find her at the usual subspace coordinates for at least another of our weeks."

He leaned back in his chair, folding his hands before him, his expression now thoughtful. "I have a favor to ask of you. It's both personal and Starfleet related."

Kati winced upon hearing the "s" word. "What did her father do now?"

He studied her carefully, the corners of her mouth lowering in discontent. "We don't know," he said somberly. "All I can tell you is that he would only talk about it to her. In person." He paused, unknowingly giving Kati's hackles time to rise. "As a matter of fact, I'm glad I got to speak to you first. Even though her father and I used to be friends, I didn't have much interaction with Doctor Marcus herself, but she struck me as a someone with a strong sense of duty so I have no doubt that if we asked, she would come to Earth to help us, regardless of her feelings on the matter. I know I can count on you to tell me the truth." He leaned forward looking her straight in the eye through the screen and the many light years separating them. "What's her state of mind, where her father is concerned? Would Starfleet be asking too much of her?"

Kati tapped her right foot against the floor, feeling the burden of exhaustion lift off her shoulders only to be replaced by the uneasy knot in the pit of her stomach, a knot which she got each time her mind was tainted by thoughts of the former Admiral Marcus. She drew her lower lip into her mouth, chewing on it, as she pondered which reply would not do her friend a disservice. "Carol rarely if ever speaks of her father. I imagine the wound is too raw. He betrayed everything he taught her to uphold under her very eyes. But even so, he is still her Dad and she still loves him. As for what might be too much for her to take, that's for her to decide. I'll give you the subspace frequencies of the ship she is on so you can talk to her yourself."

He shifted uncomfortably in his chair, a stern expression plastered onto his face, deepening the lines marring his skin, making the gray at his temples stand out in even sharper contrast. It didn't matter. Kati still felt too old for him.

"Starfleet and the Federation Council would never allow Khan Noonien Singh anywhere near Earth again, but I can make a good case every now and then. I could persuade my colleagues to grant you permission to come with her to the Sol system."

Kati's eyes narrowed. "Chris, is there something you're not telling me? Why are you so hesitant about Carol returning to Earth for the first time since she resigned from Starfleet?" A dark suspicion sneaked into her thoughts. "Oh, no!"

"It's not something I'm proud of admitting, but that doesn't make it any less true. However, I can assure you it's not a universally held view."

Kati briefly closed her eyes. The knot at the bottom of her stomach tightened further. "I suppose Starfleet can't be too enthusiastic about a distinguished officer leaving their ranks for a rock on the edge of the Mutara Nebula, where she's the wife of a product of banned 20th century genetically engineering."

He looked as though she had slapped him and she instantly regretted the hostility of her words.

"You're right, Kati," he said gravely, his tone one that made her fight down the urge to stand to attention. She had always respected stark, well-earned authority and he radiated it from every pore, cascading from the straight, firm line of his shoulders and shining from the steel in his gaze. "Carol Marcus was an officer who throughout her entire career embodied the ideals of the Starfleet Charter. I am proud to have had such a brilliant and ethical young woman under serving under my command and anyone who bad-mouthes her or her personal choices within my earshot does so with a guarantee of being reprimanded. This kind of gossip and bigotry has no place in Starfleet."

Shame burnt like acid in her gut. She held up a pacifying hand. "Chris, I'm sorry. That was uncalled for."

He gave her a smile and his eyes softened. "No harm done."

"Thank you for not asking if she's allowed to leave our system at all."

"I wasn't under the impression that she was a prisoner there. If she were, I would have done something about it, regardless of what kind of ship your commander has available."

Her heart lurched unpleasantly, as a lump formed in her throat. She swallowed hard to force words past it, but they failed her. The way he was looking at her, his eyes sparkling with genuine affection, was not helping her ability to express herself. A loud noise erupted from the direction of the glass house, interrupting them. Kati blinked, torn between relief and sorrow.

"Everything alright?" he inquired with genuine worry in his voice.

"No, I'm being robbed," she replied with a wink.

Joachim and the children of the Orion settlers were allowed to have anything that was ripe in the glass-house or the hydroponic gardens, but they found it much more fun to steal fruit every now and then.

"Wait a second," she told him. "I know just the thing to lighten the mood."

She poked her head out of the office and whistled as loudly as she could. Joachim knew that meant trouble and hid, but the aliens were always fascinated by the odd sounds the augments and the humans could produce so they came running.

"Come along, Joachim," she called to Joaquin and Ling's elder child, who was now three. The Orion children were all older, but true to his genes, Joachim caused the most mischief. "And I might not tell your parents about this one."

She waited patiently until the little boy crawled from under a row of potted rosemary and orange pepper plants and sauntered towards her with his best innocent look coloring his features resembling those of an angel straight out of Rafael's paintings. Kati reminded herself that he had the same expression every time he did something wrong, which was ludicrously often, and that there was no reason for her heart to melt like it just had. Meanwhile, she had to fight to maintain her balance, as no less than twelve Orion children were currently attempting to either hide behind her legs or brazenly peer at the screen of her terminal. Chris chuckled at the sight.

Kati bent to pick up a sweetly-smiling Joachim up from the doorway and his arms immediately went to wrap themselves around her neck. "Christopher, allow me to introduce you to the local criminal element."

TBC


	2. Chapter 2

_The shuttle hovered above the mountains and then descended above the vast fields of snow that occupied the planet's southern pole. The snow did not glimmer in the light of Ceti Alpha system's red giant star like it would have under Earth's Sun; instead it was dull and dreary: a seemingly endless sea of white beneath ashen skies. Nothing moved on its eerily still surface. It did posses, however, a kind of savage beauty that was nothing short of spell-bounding. Previous scans had indicated that the snow covered a thick ice cap populated by giant snakes that were the only ones capable of surviving in that hostile environment. Such weather passed for serene, but often this land of permanent winter was agitated by violent blizzards and snow storms. _

"_The drifting winter snows shall whelm it," Khan murmured at her side. _

_Carol grinned. "More Moby Dick?"_

_He arched an eye-brow. "No, this one is from Pierre: or, the Ambiguities. I know you're not an admirer of Hermann Melville, but I thought you knew he wrote other books besides Moby Dick."_

_Carol chuckled. "Oh, I did know. I just didn't think you did!"_

_He glanced at her briefly and regaled her with a tiny smile. "For the longest time, I chose not to," he said sounding so serious, she was actually tempted to believe him. _

# # #

Carol weighted her communicator in her right hand, trying to come to a decision. She felt both punch-drunk and wide-awake, in a dream-like state between excitement, disbelief and concern. She was going to have a child. She and Khan. She had never before been more certain that she loved him. His lovely, alabaster-sculptured face floated in her memory together with the familiar intensity in his eyes whenever he looked at her, as though she was just as vital to him as his family and the air he breathed. For the first time since the fervent confession of his feelings for her, their inhuman strength did not trouble her. Someone who could love with a passion bordering on viciousness would do anything to protect the child he had never hoped he could have. She pressed her left palm against her belly again. A daughter. She was to have a daughter.

She yearned to tell Khan of the wonderful news, but at the same time it did not feel right to do by communicator. She wanted to tell him in person, take in his reaction fully and seek the reassurance of his embrace.

"There it is." McCoy voice was exceptionally loud in the quiet sick bay. He held out a data tape to her. "A list of doctors who can supervise your pregnancy, the results of the scans I took of you and your daughter and my entire research on the serum I synthesized from augment blood, but I wouldn't use it while you're expecting."

"Why not?" she asked while taking the proffered data-storing device.

"Your baby is part human and has a genome unlike anything anyone has ever seen before. There is no telling how she will adapt to your body or how your body will adapt to carrying her, for that matter. All I can recommend at this point is caution... and don't skimp on your vitamin shots. If you feel like sleeping, sleep for as long as it takes. If you feel like eating, eat. If you can't work an appetite, don't force it. Have some hypos instead."

"What if I feel like working?"

"Then don't," he said severely, training the full force of one of his mighty frowns on her. "I mean it! You need to take it easy for both your sakes."

"Alright, I get the message." She twirled the tape he had given her in her hands. "Any medic on this list you'd recommend in particular?"

He sighed, seeming pensive. "Maybe Dr. Niwara. She's Caitian, but she studied Denobulan genetic engineering among other things and she's been working mostly on remote colonies and outposts. But I should warn you: if half of what I heard about her is true, she's got more than a bit of a temper and a lot of issues with authority."

She was about to answer him, when the doctor's computer beeped with an incoming call. McCoy rolled his eyes.

"It must be Jim again," he grumbled. "Do you want me to tell him to get back to his job and let me do mine?"

Carol shook her head no with a smile. "He's just worried. After all, I did faint right under his eyes. Thanks for the recommendation," she said pocketing the data tape.

McCoy grunted a "not at all" and went to answer his captain. Carol lay back on the biobed to rest for a minute longer, before she had to face the world again. Despite the doctor's ministrations she was still feeling a bit queasy. Normally she hated being told to scale back her work, but she would have to alter her thinking now that she had to take care for both herself and her unborn baby.

"Carol," McCoy called to her from his computer. She looked to him. "Congratulations," he added with a slight smile.

# # #

The call had arrived about fifteen minutes after Doctor McCoy had released her from sickbay. She had been in the throes of explaining her loss of consciousness and receiving well-meaning wishes, when Admiral Pike had asked to speak to her in private. He had first contacted the augment freighter that had brought her to Nausicaa, using frequencies Kati had provided him with, and Otto had told him he could find her aboard the Enterprise of all places. They were talking just now in the captain's ready room, which Kirk had graciously put at her disposal for this purpose. Carol had initially been glad to see Christopher Pike, whom she greatly respected, but once the greetings and the polite inquiries had been over, a cloud appeared on the horizon.

Carol sat back in her chair, regarding the admiral speculatively. He didn't look any happier about the situation, his mouth set in a grim line. "Did he give any indication at all as to why exactly he wanted to speak to me about this?" she asked. "This seems like an internal Starfleet matter."

Pike sketched a vague gesture with his hand. "It is an internal fleet matter, but no, he didn't say why wanted to talk to you. If I had to speculate, I'd say he misses you."

Carol sighed heavily. "In that case, he knows which frequencies to use." She looked away, mulling over the possibilities, her hands placed protectively over her stomach. The trip all the way Earth would be a long one and probably not at all advisable in her condition, but with her father in confinement, there was no other way to go about it. "I'm not trying to be difficult, Admiral."

When she glanced back to him, his eyes were full of sympathy. "I didn't think you were, Doctor Marcus, and believe me when I say that I didn't want to ask, either, but our armistice with the Klingon Empire has been holding up surprisingly well and there have been talks of a permanent peace treaty, maybe even a cooperation accord... ."

"Which might not happen, if they found out that the former head of Starfleet tried to have bio-weapons built to kill them all," she finished for him.

"When I ordered an in-depth investigation be conducted into the projects your father oversaw personally during the war, I had high personal hopes that the clandestine base on Ceti Alpha V had been the only illegal operation he had run. Then last month we discovered that he had been attempting to have the agent responsible for Tellurian plague as well as several other pathogens modified to affect only the Klingons. So far we know he has been using one of the cold stations on the outer frontier as basis of operations, but he refused to disclose which one. It's not just a potential information leak that concerns me, but also raids from pirates, privateers and the Orion Syndicate. With former admiral Marcus' protection gone, one of the scientists working on this outpost might be tempted to sell the biological weapons on the black market. In the wrong hands, they could cause the death of billions. So it's imperative that we find out more as soon as possible."

He had a point and she knew it, though she wished she hadn't. Despite everything, the Federation was still her home and she didn't want it plunged into another war with the Klingons, any more than she wanted her father to cause more harm than he already had or several deadly viruses unleashed on an unsuspecting Alpha Quadrant. Unfortunately, that also meant she could not tell Khan about the baby just yet. If he knew, there was no way he would have had a conniption about her undertaking a stressful trip to Earth to confront her father and the ghosts of her painful past. Part of her agreed, the words almost on her tongue. She should tell Pike she was pregnant and needed to be someplace familiar and reassuring and think of nothing else but this unexpected gift bestowed upon her, but she couldn't. As much as she wanted to, she could not place her own good or even that of her unborn child above the welfare of billions. Besides, Earth had some of the best hospitals in the explored space. She and the baby would be just fine.

# # #

_Khan and Carol's home on the new colony by the Morningstar Mountains was smaller and more modest than the one they had had on the settlement that had been destroyed by the Klingon raid her father had caused. Khan had initially planned it to be more comfortable for what he assumed were her needs, since he himself preferred to live in positively spartan conditions, but she had insisted that if they kept things to a bare minimum, the dwelling would be ready sooner and so she could move out of Kati's house and back with him more quickly. Besides, after a year in the cramped living quarters of a Constitution-class ship, any house seemed scrumptious by comparison. But still he managed to sneak things like the gorgeous Risan vanity piece he had gotten her past her radar. It wasn't quite ostentatious, but she could tell he was coddling her._

_It wasn't unprecedented within their history, but she noted he had stepped it up since her return to the augment planet. Perhaps it was his quiet way of expressing gratitude for her forgiveness, an off-shot of 20th century mores or just his way of showing affection. Either way, she didn't want to appear inconsiderate and refuse his tokens of attention. She just didn't know what the appropriate response was supposed to be and whether she should reciprocate or not. He certainly didn't seem to expect her to. So she had just resorted to letting him know he didn't have to buy his way into her good graces and that his willingness to work on their relationship was good enough for her. Though he conveyed that he did understand, the gifts kept coming. Sweet as the gestures were, they still made her uneasy. They seemed too much of an over-indulgence, given the harsh circumstances of life on Ceti Alpha V._

_She was considering another talk, as she combed her hair in the perfectly-polished Risan mirror. But not tonight. It was already late and she was weary. She was tiring with startlingly ease lately. She grinned deprecatingly at her own reflection, wondering if she was growing old. But there was no gray in the gold in her hair, which was reaching to her shoulders again and she thought to keep it that way, watching the strands cascade almost hypnotically as the brush straightened them out. Her musings were interrupted by a slight hiss, as the door of the bathroom adjoined to their bedroom opened, and smiled. Khan came into view, fresh from his shower, hair still wet, clad only in a large towel wrapped around his hips. Their gazes met in the mirror and held. He came to stand behind her chair and gently pried her brush from her fingers to set it on the vanity table. _

"_You're beautiful," he murmured, brushing her hair out of the way so he could pepper the right side of her neck with light kisses. "My golden queen." He bit teasingly on her ear, his free hand resting on her thigh beneath the material of her night-gown. His eyes were still fixed on her reflection in the mirror. _

_Carol grasped his wrist to stall him. "Not tonight," she said. "I'm really tired. Do you mind?"_

_His hands slid off her. "Of course not." He pressed a kiss to the top of her head. "How about I give you a massage to help you sleep?"_

_Now that he mentioned it, a massage did sound wonderful. She stood and turned to put her arms around his neck. "Sometimes I think you're too good to me."_

_He kissed her chastely on the lips. "Nothing is too good for you, Carol."_

_A few minutes later she lay on her front on the bed, Khan's long, elegant fingers digging into the tense muscles of her back, rubbing soothing circles into them, methodically working out the kinks embedded in them. It felt heavenly and she began to drift off, just as she remembered she was supposed to discuss something else with him._

"_I finished today the second analysis of the ice samples we took during our trip to the south pole. It's the purest water known to both the Alpha and the Beta quadrants, purer than even the famous Altair one. If we could find a way to extract it in large quantities, it would have a high trading value. We should look into that and soon. The Orion colony is bound to have considerably bigger needs than ours and we really can't postpone setting up a medical facility for them... ."_

"_Carol," he interrupted in a bemused tone, stroking a hand through her hair. "You are allowed to take a break every now and then."_

_She yawned into the pillow. "I know, but this is important."_

"_It will not become any less so by morning, which is when we are going to discuss it at length," he assured. _

_Sleep pressed heavily on her eye-lids and so she closed them, muttering a not yet fully-formed idea about new technology and pressing concerns. She thought she heard him chuckle but couldn't be certain. The pads of his fingers were pressing lightly into her nape and it felt so relaxing. She let herself dose off. _

TBC


	3. Chapter 3

"_Computer, commence recording," Carol ordered, sitting behind the desk in the small office she kept in her house on the augment colony. She took a long sip of her coffee before beginning recording. "Personal journal of Carol Marcus. Stardate 2262.55. I have been living on the augment colony on Menkar or Ceti Alpha V according to Starfleet designation for ten months. As I have estimated during my first tenure here, the augments are prospering, despite this world's harsh conditions. Though the second settlement is more modest than the first and subjected to the more hostile environment up in the northern hemisphere, by the the mountains Khan has called Morningstar after Milton's 'Paradise Lost'. However, its trategic position is ideal, obscured from all known sensors by the ionic radiation emitted by the new metallic element we discovered both in the Ocean of Dust and the caves beneath the mountains. The augments have called it chrysalisite after the project that resulted in the creation of their kind. _

_Our surveys of the star system revealed it very_ poor in precious metals like latinum, but rich beyond belief in more practical minerals. In fact, I can't think of any other place in the explored space that could be through its wilderness and strategic advantages more fitting for the augments. Menkar offers other less obvious opportunities: the forests are full of a species of berries similar to redcurrant that make an excellent wine. The purity of the water extracted from the ice cap covering half of the southern hemisphere would be very profitable on the galactic market. The exploitation of the planet's natural resources require an abundant work force, for which not even the augments suffice. The settling of former Orion slaves has marked the first steps in that direction. The Orions are glad to be free and take no issue with the augment benevolent administration of the system. __

__It has not all been smooth sailing, however. When rescuing Kati and Admiral Christopher Pike from a stronghold of the Orion Syndicate in the Romulan Neutral Zone, unbeknown to anyone, Khan kidnapped a leader of the criminal organization. From her he had gotten information about the inner workings of a murky world of pirates and outlaws that is usually inaccessible to established interstellar powers. Khan loathes criminal underbellies as much as the latter do, as he values order above everything else. His tactical mind has put that knowledge to good to use and he raided the Syndicate's more vulnerable outposts to acquire technology and liberate slaves. The Syndicate retaliated by sending a small fleet to the Ceti Alpha system. A few Nausicaan ships came along for the looting. They approached us through the Mutara Nebula, which is an ideal location for an ambush, and so they were no match for the Vengeance. I persuaded Khan not to execute the prisoners and to give them a chance to rehabilitate themselves on the Orion colony. __

__The victory has made the augments in general and Khan in particular infamous in certain circles. This reputation might serve as great protection in the future. We are also in the process of mining the asteroid field covering the only entrance to the star system not surrounded by the nebula.__

__I have never given much thought to the exact specifics of what happiness might mean to me. I believed... I still believe in the spirit of the Starfleet Charter and I sometimes miss the familiarity of my life as an officer and Earth. But life here has proved rewarding. I feel like I have the chance to make a difference in the way the augments shape their society and infuse their steely notions of order and loyalty with a dose of compassion and in time, maybe even democratic values. __

__The psychologist Alfred Adler once wrote that it is easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them. I can only hope to live up to mine and in doing so to set an example to my new family. I will certainly try. __

__End of entry."__

_# # #_

_The guest quarters on the Enterprise were not more spacious than the living ones, but they were comfortable and appropriately appointed. Carol had been assigned one with a common bathroom with Kati, who had arrived to Nausicaa to accompany her to Earth. Officially, the flagship was just taking a detour to the Sol system to drop them off on her way to her mission in the Tau Ceti system. Unofficially, Pike was doing her a favor by having her transported on a familiar ship, where she had many friends, as a small compensation for the hand she was extending Starfleet. Normally Carol would have protested the extraneous and unnecessary effort, but now she was glad to be inMcCoy's capable hands. Kati's presence was something else she would have to thank the admiral for, but Carol's heart was still heavy. _

_Guilt gnawed at her. She had spoken briefly to Khan via communicator and he had not protested her decision, obviously relieved that Kati was going with her. He had only been insistent in asking whether she was healthy. She had almost told him right there and then, before reason had caught up with her tongue. Her decision, difficult as it was to uphold, had been already been made. She shouldn't cause a potential political crisis while at it. Khan would do anything, no matter how extreme or insane, for those he loved, even if that compromised the frail entente he had with the Federation. It wasn't just the billions threatened by the biological weapons her father had manufactured she had to protect, but also the people she cared about and had left back on Ceti Alpha V._

_The door chimed and Carol went to answer it. Kati stood on the other side with a bright smile on her lips. _

_"This is all kinds of paradoxical," her friend remarked, as she came in. "Returning to Earth aboard the Enterprise." She pulled a chair and plopped onto it with her customary easy grace. _

_She was the picture of casualness and looked at Carol so trustingly, that the levee broke. Tears sprung to her eyes, as the enormity of what she was doing hit her full force. Kati was on her feet in an instant, concern darkening her features. "What's wrong?"_

_"I'm pregnant," Carol blurted out, unable to hold it in for a moment longer._

_Kati brightened up. "Tears of joy... I could definitely get behind those." With that she enveloped Carol in a tight hug. "That's marvelous. Khan must be besides himself with happiness. How did you manage to get him to agree to this trip, anyway?" _

_Carol buried her face in Kati's shoulder, sobbing now. Kati drew back to stare her in the face. The augment's scowl returned. "Tell him now," she demanded, thrusting her communicator at Carol._

_She shook her head no, her vision blurry with tears. "I can't!"_

"Yes, you can. You've just tested it on me," Kati uttered with fake cheer, still holding out the device to her. "Carol, you might know even better than me what this would mean to him. He deserves to know."

Carol wiped furiously at her eyes with her hands.

"Tell him," Kati insisted. "Or I will."

"No, you won't," Carol said flatly. "This is between me and him and you will not interfere."

Kati gaped at her. "Is that an order?"

Carol was taken aback. "An order?"

"Yes, an order," Kati shot back without missing a beat. "I know you're uncomfortable with the position of authority you hold among us and believe that you have it solely because you're Khan's wife. But I promise you: you don't! You have it, because you're loyal and you work tirelessly next to us and you show us that there is reaching for better even for an augment. So I'm asking again: am I talking to my superior or to my friend?"

Carol's heart fluttered in her chest, suffused with warmth and the exhilaration of hope. "You're talking to a friend and as a friend, I'm asking you to let me resolve this matter with my husband without any pressure or interference."

Kati shook her head, her eyes going soft and sad. "You're resolving this matter without your husband, Carol. You're deciding for both him and your child all on your own. So once more, please, tell him. He deserves to know."

"He'll come after me, because where the people he loves are concerned, nothing is off limits, and then the agreement you... we have with the Federation will be gone. I have to protect you!"

"The weight of the world isn't on your shoulders," Kati groused, a pinched, unhappy expression settling on her face.

"Yes, it is! It literally is. You said I hold a position of authority among you. If that's true, I can't accept it as one of power, but of responsibility. I have a duty to help the colony to the best of my abilities and I have to hold Khan back from crossing certain lines in the name of those he holds dear. This is the sort of difference that I can make, because what we're building on Menkar will also be my daughter's home and the legacy that Khan and I are leaving her matters. Now do you understand why I must do this?"

Kati was gawking at her as though she had never properly seen her before. She took a wary step towards Carol. "No... not yet, anyway! But what you should understand is that you don't have to shoulder this alone. I'm here for you... with you."

They hugged again and Carol allowed herself to be soothed and comforted. She had never had any blood siblings, but she thought she was beginning to comprehend what sisterly love felt like and the unique family bond Khan shared with his former crew.

"He's going to be very cross with me, isn't he?" Carol asked, once they had calmed down and sat down together at the table.

Kati scoffed. "With his beloved pregnant wife, you mean? To be honest, I'd be very surprised if he didn't get over it in under a minute."

Carol snorted, unsure whether she was more worried about Kati's being wrong or about how easy Khan found it to forgive her just about anything. She was even less certain if she wished that Khan loved her more wisely or if she was secretly pleased that he didn't.

# # #

Kati walked into her own quarters on the Enterprise with a sunken mood and overcome by a feeling of dread. Being back on this ship unsettled her and Carol's news, while joyful, only increased her sense of foreboding. She hesitated for a long while, pacing up and down like caged lion, which in a way she supposed she was. Augments had not been made to be confined and though technically she was a guest aboard the Federation vessel, she knew she raised everyone's hackles and blood-pressure simply by being aboard. She ordered herself a green tea from the replicator and almost spat the liquid tasting like heated polymer back into the cup. She doodled some more and then came to a decision and flipped open her communicator. The device took its sweet time connecting her to the destination of her call.

"Hello," answered a familiar voice after a few endless minutes of waiting, coming through deeper than usual.

Only then it occurred to her that she might have risen him from sleep. She smiled wryly. "Hi... it's Kati. I'm sorry if this is a bad time."

"No, not at all. Did you leave Nausicaa alright?"

Kati sank on the edge of her bed. "Yes, we did."

"That doesn't sound like it."

Kati thought carefully about what she should say next. "It's not the journey. It's just... I have a problem with a newer friend that I can't tell you about and another problem with my oldest friend that I can't tell him about."

"Sounds like quite a dilemma. If you want my unsolicited advice, always stay out of other people's marriages. Let them work it out for themselves!"

Kati leaned back on the bed. She felt so tired, though the sensation was not in any shape physical. "Words to live by! May I open the thorny topic of individual responsibility next?"

TBC


	4. Chapter 4

_Ceti Alpha V contradicted the earthen cliché of a cold north and warm south, as its lower hemisphere was mostly covered in snow, while the higher one did not even have an ice-cap. The nights in the Northern Wastelands were warmer than anywhere else on the planet, but they were also thirty-hours long. The sky was dark violet and illuminated by the local version of aurora borealis, wide, shimmering ribbons of pink and gold streaking the horizon. Khan liked to reference Milton and claimed that it was better to rule in hell than serve in heaven, but the north at night looked like the farthest thing from hell. But like everywhere else on Menkar, this wild beauty was poisonous. _

_The splendor of the skies and the balmy climate came in stark contrast with what was the ground: hard stone covered by sand interrupted from place to place by acid lakes. It was there that Khan had spirited the derelict, asteroid-nicked Botany Bay, sheltered from the elements in a rock cave. Carol didn't know if he had put it there as a sign of leaving Earth and their past there behind or out of a practical concern, since the north had no torrent storms, a unique occurrence on this planet. Now that the stringent needs of the colony were covered and the new ground defense system was operational, she was considering starting a museum of the augments' history by placing their antiquated ship in a structure with the technology to preserve it intact for their descendants. _

_Along with the cryotubes, the Botany Bay had also housed their archive, their entire story since the inception of the human genetic engineering project to their final defeat in the Eugenics War. The information had been transferred onto 23rd century devices, but the original artifacts were still on the ship. Carol had thought about requesting a trained historian from Federation territory to organize these things and use them to write a fairer account of Khan and his people than the current monographs, which were all based on what those who had defeated them in battle had left behind. _

_Powered down, the dead ship seemed hollow somehow, her footsteps against the floor of 20th century alloys thunderingly loud. She made her way to the control center, where the original documents were kept, safe in their panels. The only thing Khan had taken with him had been a stack of books, he had later lost in the destruction of their first settlement, but up in the uninhabited north, the Botany Bay had been spared. The medical files on the augments from the facility where they had been made had no names, only serial numbers, though the photos spoke for them. Khan had indifferently told her once that she could have his, if he wanted. Carol knew him well enough to be aware it was at least partly an act. He was not fond of the memory of him being a victim. _

_His pictures went from depictions of a baby's sweet smile, looking at the camera with dole eyes, to those of a young boy with ramrod straight posture and a cold, shielded gaze. The scar marring the skin on the left side of his mouth, just bellow his lower lip appeared around the age of nine. Carol knew how he had gotten it, had stumbled into the knowledge really after innocently asking one day, operating under the assumption it was a remnant of the war. It wasn't. It was the result of a test into what would permanently injure an augment, an experiment devised and supervised by the woman who had birthed him. Dr. Sarina Kaur was not his genetic mother, as Khan's had been created in a petri dish through a mix of cloning technology and early DNA-resequencing, but she had carried him to term._

_Despite the irrationality of hating someone who had been dead for the past three hundred years and her being no worse and no better than anyone else who had ever sought to create and exploit a slave race, Carol loathed Kaur. She loathed her for the precise and technical way she sounded in her journals, testament of the woman's brilliance and her being a scientist much like Carol herself. She loathed her, because she could not tell with absolute certainty that she would have acted differently, had she lived in Kaur's time. And she loathed her, because a child to whom it had not even begun to occur that superior ability bred superior ambition had figured it out that Kaur had given birth to him and wanted to see her as his mother. But most of all, she loathed her, because deep down in a dark corner of his soul Khan probably rarely visited, he still loved her._

# # #

Carol had spent so much of her journey to her home-planet in the medbay, that she might as well have moved in there. Not that McCoy would ever tell her that. Even he had more tact than that. She had walked in supported by Uhura after getting yet another dizzy spell. Another person who had an abundance of tact was Uhura, who scuttled away with a warm, encouraging smile in Carol's direction, as soon as McCoy hinted he wanted to be alone with his patient. So far it appeared to be nothing more than a bout of dizziness, but he took an additional scan just to make sure. Carol did not look healthy and it was more than a little jarring to have a patient deteriorate so much under his care.

Her skin was sallow and her eyes were sunken in her head, surrounded by dark patches. She also looked like she could use a glass – or more – from his secret supply of Saurian brandy. Or a few from Scotty's secret supply of scotch. And several more from Uhura's secret supply of Romulan ale. But under circumstances, that would not do for the obvious reasons.

"Relax," McCoy said, when the tricorder assured him once more that both she and her baby were doing fine. "If it looks like a dizzy spell and it reads like a dizzy spell, it is a dizzy spell. You're lucky you're not Bolian and don't have their version of dizziness and morning sickness."

"Or the Andorian version of cramps and breast changes."

He arched an eyebrow at her in surprise.

He didn't have to ask how she knew about that, because she rushed to add. "My room-mate at the Academy was Andorian and we used to try and gross each other out with disgusting trivia about our species. That and eat Andorian junk food and fish and chips at odd hours of the night." Her smile was wan and distant.

"Sounds like you had better luck with your Academy room-mate than I did," he grumbled hoping to distract her from her gloom.

"Why? What race was your room-mate?"

McCoy grimaced. "Jim Kirk," he mumbled.

Carol chuckled, wriggling to make herself more comfortable on the biobed. The doctor loaded a hypo with vitamins and injected it into her neck with great care. Her skin seemed almost translucent and her veins were painfully visible.

"You know, just because you're having a baby, it doesn't mean you can't move back to Federation space, whenever you feel like it," he said quietly, as he retracted the hypospray.

Her head lolled towards him, a frown spreading over her face, and her gaze grew hardened. McCoy held up a hand to appease her, before it devolved into his being suspected of being prejudiced against her choice of a husband. It wasn't that he wouldn't normally assume that anyone who resigned from Starfleet to run off with Khan Noonien Singh was insane, because he did. But he knew her and that despite everything she had been through, she was still every bit a rational person fully capable of making her own decisions.

"Look, all I'm trying to say here is that sometimes marriages just don't work out and it's nobody's fault."

Her frown actually deepened and she slowly sat up on the biobed, prompting him to grasp at her shoulder to stop her. He winced when he felt bones through her medical gown. She obviously couldn't keep down enough food, which given the unprecedented character of her pregnancy the tricorder would be unable to measure exactly, so he would have to estimate just how much to amp her vitamins routine by going out on a limb rather than by following precise data.

"Whoa, easy there! I haven't cleared you for standing just yet."

"What you said before about marriages breaking down... that sounded a lot like speaking from personal experience," she noted in subdued tones, but obediently lying back down.

McCoy stomped onto the sharp jab of pain at the thought of everything his divorce that had cost him, but he fancied himself as a bit of a psychologist aboard the Enterprise and though Carol was no longer a fellow officer, he still felt as though it was his duty both as her attending physician and as a friend to try and help out, even if the subject was one he was least qualified for.

"I get sea sick and suffer from fear of flying and yet I'm on a ship... in space." He grimaced. "That's what divorce would sometimes do to you... not that I'm tryin' to push you back into the arms of Starfleet or something!"

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to pry."

He shrugged. "You didn't pry. I just plan on keeping you under observation for another hour and couldn't come up with a better way to depress you. You know, since you didn't already have enough on your plate." He busied himself with filling another hypo. "By the way, you're also a bit low on fluids."

"I don't have marital problems," she murmured as though to herself but loud enough for him to hear her in the deserted infirmary. The ship was on a routine mission for once so with the exception of Carol and her unique pregnancy, nobody else needed his services at present. The duty nurse was out back, in the office, handling the requisition requests to compliment their unexpected visit to the Sol system.

"If anything, our problem seems to be that we don't have one, if that makes any sense. Some days I feel like our relationship has been forged at war and now we don't know how to deal with peace... or at least, I don't. He's just fine, better than fine, in fact: he's ecstatic."

"And you feel guilty for not being happy?" he chanced, as he turned back to her with his now fully-prepared hypo.

"I am happy... and I love him, but I don't trust him. I don't trust him not to break every bone and then rip out the still beating heart of anyone who breathes at me the wrong way."

McCoy winced. He and his ex-wife had had their fair share of problems and over time he had listened to his patients, human and aliens alike, relate to him a great number of relationship issues, but hers was a new one. But it was one of the worst kind: one that was entirely realistic and not at all subjected to any emotional distortion on her part. Putting the second hypo he had injected her with away, he folded his arms across his chest. "He doesn't know you're pregnant, does he?" he guessed.

She looked instantly guilty. "No, she doesn't," she admitted in a voice so low, he had to strain to hear her.

"You think he'll come get you, if he did, and risk the deal he has with Federation?" he went farther with his deductions.

Her eyes became wet and uncertain. "I don't know... I thought I did, but I really don't. He's my blind spot as much as I am his."

McCoy battled down another wince, feeling truly sorry for her. She was in a most unfortunate position. From a strictly rational point of view, he thought she was in right to keep her condition a secret from Khan, but he couldn't be certain that would have been the advice he would have provided, had she been in a relationship with anyone else but the augment leader. The bottom line was that no matter how hard he pushed in the opposite direction, when chips were down, he couldn't really discount who and what her husband was. It was a realization that bordered too much on bigotry for comfort and heralded back to the fact that he belonged to a medical culture strongly opposed to everything Khan represented. He would have to examine both notions in private later.

"I think," he began cautiously. "At the end of the day, you're the only one who can decide and you should do so regardless of what anyone, including your doctor with an unofficial second degree in marital problems and mistakes, says." He trained a stern look on her, frowning slightly. "But, as your doctor, I recommend you at least try and calm down about the whole thing. Your stress levels are way high and it's not doing the little one any favors."

She nodded, appearing thoughtful. "Thank you... Bones."

He grinned wryly. "Don't mention it. Now do you want another hypo or a glass of water?"

She smiled a bit. "Water, please."

"Did you talk to that Caitian doctor I told you about?" he asked to change the subject, as he got her water from the replicator.

"Dr. Niwara?" She paused to take a sip of her water. "Yes, I did. She's more than interested in taking my case so I arranged for a meeting while I'm on Earth to discuss details."

"Good. You can always refer me, if she has any additional questions."

# # #

Returning to Earth was more like visiting an alien planet rather than going home and it had nothing to do with the changes of the past three centuries. Earth had never truly belonged to them, not in the way Menkar was beginning to. After a tensed journey that had seemed interminably long, during which Carol had been so displeased with Kati's attempts to amuse herself by unsettling Enterprise's crew, that she had had to stop. Now looking at the blue celestial body through the tiny window of her quarters, all Kati felt was an unsettling frisson up her spine. Which was why she welcomed the interruption of her communicator, thinking it was Christopher with well-meaning wishes about her arrival.

Chris and she had been seeing each whenever possible for the entire past year, skirting the fine line between friendship and something else, and each time she returned from spending time with him, she told herself it was the last one and that she would not allow her feelings for him to escalate beyond control. But that was not the issue: she had the will power to snuff out the increment of love growing within her soul, but she did not want to anymore. She had had a taste of home, safety and a peaceful life next her friends, and she found herself not wishing to deprive herself of the addition of such a compelling man.

However, the subspace frequency did not indicate an earthly origin for the call. Instead, it was from their colony – one of Khan's personal ones. Khan, whom she had been avoiding ever since she had found out his wife was pregnant, because he could normally tell when a rock he had just met was lying to him. It was a lot easier when it came to dealing with Kati, whom he had known his whole life. Kati took a moment to clear his throat in hopes of making her voice steadier before flipping her communicator open.

TBC


	5. Chapter 5

Petty as that might be, Kati could not help herself but feel a hefty measure of glee at the thought of Alexander Marcus being imprisoned in a facility located in Australia. It wasn't anywhere near the Botany Bay, but on the other side of the continent, not far away from Perth, but it was the poetic irony that counted. This soothed at least part of the sting of her conversation with Khan, right before the Enterprise had dropped her and Carol on Earth. The memory, preserved intact and with crystal clarity by her brain, haunted her and poisoned her days with a feeling of disbelief bordering on displacement. But she did not want to dwell on it during her trip on her former home-world, as there was more than enough time to face the consequences once she returned to Menkar. Besides, Carol needed the support of a clear-minded friend, not of one who tied herself in knots.

Perth had done well for itself in the 23rd century, expanding to dimensions no city of three hundred years ago could have had. Despite the forest of sky-scrapers both old and new, there was greenery everywhere. The skies looked as busy as the streets. Shuttles and hovering cars as well as more traditional vehicles, including bicycles, roamed everywhere, and the sidewalks were populated with both humans and aliens. But the suburban beach, where Chris had arranged for Carol and her to stay in a lovely bungalow, was quiet. The sapphire blue ocean, its giant waves tinged with glistening white foam, matched the unfalteringly serene heaven above. No violent winds agitated the balmy heat outside, the steadiness of the air unfamiliar, used as she was to the storms of Menkar.

Whenever she could, she walked down on the narrow strip of sand bordering the water, staring at the lush plants framing the houses. She kept staring at the bright and varied colors of the scenery, feeling silly but unable to stop herself from admiring a sky that was not gray all the time. Under different circumstances, she would have enjoyed this unexpected holiday she got for the first time since awakening from cryo-sleep. But things being what they were, Carol looked positively ashen, got dizzy and almost toppled over every now and then and spent her mornings vomiting in the bathroom. But above all, she worried. In fact, Carol was the spitting picture of concern, visibly tortured by the secret she kept from Khan, fearing for the safety of her unborn child, dreading her meeting with her father and whatever Starfleet wanted her to get out of him. Truth be told, the latter made Kati nervous as well, although she thought she could get the answer all by herself a lot faster and without racking Carol over the coals. Unfortunately, her friend might disprove of her torturing Marcus, no matter how much the man deserved it.

With shuttle technology, transporters and hovering cars available, they could as well have stayed in San Francisco and travel to Australia as needed, but Carol's former Starfleet-issued apartment was gone, and Chris and his colleagues most likely wanted to avoid further tensions and unfortunate implications by having an augment so close to the heart of the Federation. Kati had gone along with it, seeing no reason to insist otherwise, prompting a few grateful smiles and understanding looks from Chris, which failed to illicit any of the usual thrill within her at the reality of their growing ability to communicate without words. If this trip had demonstrated anything to her was that she had severely underestimated the obstacles in the way of tripping their connection past the line of friendship.

Kati was in the process of admiring the mix of wisteria, hooded lilies and coral vines decorating the narrow lawn in front of her temporary house, inhaling the flowers' scent flavored by that of the salty breeze blowing from the direction of the ocean, which spread just across the quaint strip of golden beach. Everything around her invited to relaxation but did nothing to dull the knot of anxiety permanently settled at the bottom of her stomach ever since she had left the familiarity of the colony. Her hearing filtered the sound of approaching foot steps and the scraping of a cane against the ground through that of the waves. She turned her head to see Christopher striding towards her, shoulders squared, the admiral uniform fitting him like a second skin, symbol of the fact that there was a literal world standing between them. The current situation put a serious damper on her developing an optimistic streak and rather reinforced Khan's insistence on remembering that Shakespeare had only written tragedies. Either way, this whole impossible relationships spiel worked wonderfully on paper but was terribly annoying in reality.

His hover car was parked on the edge of the loan and Carol, whom he had taken to the prison her father was held in, was nowhere in sight. Chris had handled most of the issues relating to their stay on Earth by himself and had accompanied them personally to Australia without the addition of any assistant or yeoman. As far as she could tell, that was because either whatever Starfleet wanted from Carol's father was of vital importance or because Chris wanted to safeguard them from the potential prejudices of other officers. Since his affection for her was obvious in his eyes whenever they were together, she was all too aware that some of it was an off-shot of that. She straightened herself up, self-consciously running a hand through the thick of her hair, patting the locks behind her left ear. Christopher stooped in front of her and gave her a weary smile. Amid all the doubts she had been having lately, one thing emerged as certain: they were all tired and on edge.

Not wanting to keep him longer than necessary in full uniform under the late morning sun, she invited him in the house. He had come for Carol fairly early that day in order to take her to see her father for the first time in over a year. Carol had had a better morning, eaten her fill at breakfast and her cheeks were even starting to regain something akin to color. The goodbye had been strained, leaving Kati alone to wait. She had replicated everything she needed to make cake and lemonade in order to wail away the hours. When that had been done and her mind had still refused to stop turning, she had gone outside hoping for a measure of solace in the beautiful vista of the ocean.

Kati and Chris found a place for themselves at the breakfast bar and shared some lemonade, doing a good job at avoiding each other's eyes, while he explained that Carol had seemed fine, when he had left her at the "penal colony".

"Alright," he said out of the sudden, startling her into meeting his gaze, which studied her somberly. "What is it? It can't be healthy to keep whatever it is that's eating you all bottled up inside."

Kati grimaced. "You mean besides all this?" she replied gesturing to their surroundings, instantly aware of the irony of it, as the open space was very nice, a stylized mix of glass, white walls, dark brown furniture and lush house plants under a high and slightly domed ceiling covered by a mosaic with a maritime theme.

He nodded wordlessly, the sobriety of his expression demanding nothing less.

She shifted uneasily on her bar stool and pushed her now empty glass away from her on the table. "What are we doing, Chris?" she finally blurted out. "The two of us. Running off to meet on neutral planets, whenever we get a moment to spare. The Federation is your world and Starfleet your life. You don't even feel at ease wearing something other than your uniform. And I'm never going to leave my family. They're everything I've ever known or had and they need me. We should just... break it off."

He regarded her steadily. "If that is what you want."

His calm infuriated her. "You could at least feign regret," she snapped.

"I don't have to feign anything, Kati, but I don't believe in holding people by force in a relationship they don't want."

"We're in a relationship?"

"Unless there is some cultural code I'm missing, I was under the impression that we were." He paused and only now his voice wavered every so slightly. "Was I wrong?"

Kati swallowed hard, focusing her gaze on maroon surface of the breakfast bar. "You weren't," she relented. "But you can see how our moving at the speed of continental drift might get confusing."

"I thought we had an unspoken agreement about moving slowly and finding where that takes us one step at a time," he remarked in a soft voice, his tone infused with tenderness.

"And where does that leave us now?"

"Kati, I want to be with you... whether as a friend or as something else, it's all fine by me. But you're the only one who can decide what you want. Take all the time you need for it. I'll be right here."

Nobody had accused the augments of having good impulse control... with the exception of maybe Khan, who was very fond of applying their love for order to himself and his reactions and the rest of their family strove to follow his example. So perhaps Kati herself was a bit rash. But then she was being faced with this handsome, kind man, whom she had admired from afar for quite a while now, showing so much understanding and care for her feelings and wishes, that the year spent exercising restraint finally caught up with her passionate nature and she found herself reaching over the table to grab him and pull him close for a kiss. His eyes widened in surprise, but he kissed her back, one of his hands coming to sink into her hair, his fingers fervently stroking her nape. She moaned into the kiss, her skin tingling, as her senses became addled. Then he broke the kiss and drew back, plunging her back into reality. Her only consolation was that he looked as affected by their kiss as she felt: his breathing coming out harsh and labored through red and swollen lips, his pupils blown, his heart-beat erratic, and there were spots of color high on his cheeks. All that made her realize just how she yearned to kiss him again.

"Kati," he said, her name uncommonly loud in the quiet house. "I've missed my chance on one relationship, because I didn't reach out to her before she moved on and then on another, because I rushed head-first into it. I don't want either to happen to us." He rounded the bar to come stand right in front of her. He pressed the back of her hand against her left cheek, making her shiver.

Kati reached to press her palm against his, intertwining their fingers together, prompting him to smile warmly at her. "But I won't lie about my feelings for you," he said, his voice coming off throatier than usual. "I care a lot about you." He pressed a light, chaste kiss on her mouth.

"And I don't want us to break up," she said and winced, realizing that might sound cold in the face of his heartfelt declaration, but he didn't seem to mind. She squeezed his hand one last time before letting go and stepping back. "So where do you see us going and please don't say wherever I want us to?"

He nodded. "Fair enough. Believe it or not, even Starfleet admirals have to retire sometime and if that's alright with you, I can't think of a better way to spend the rest of my life than with you."

She grinned and placed her arms around his shoulders, pressing herself against his body. "That's more than alright with me."

His hands cradled her lower back and they kissed again, slower and more tenderly this time. His lips drifted from hers to stroke across her cheeks, nose and forehead. His arms held tighter onto her, a quiet despair slipping into his brace. It suddenly occurred to her that caught with her outburst and frustrations as she had been, she had missed something essential: it wasn't only Carol who was going through a personal crisis because of Alexander Marcus, it was Chris as well.

Kati opened her eyes to look at him again, this time in a new light. "I was just very selfish, wasn't I?"

He frowned but didn't release her. "No, you weren't. We needed to talk about this sooner or later."

"But later would have been better," she guessed. "I know Alexander Marcus is a touchy subject for a number of reasons from the official and confidential to the most personal, but I was under the impression you two used to be friends so this new asinine behavior on his part complete with dragging his pregnant daughter across the galaxy can't be easy to deal with for you."

Now he did let go, merely taking her by the hand and leading her to the couch by the wall that was made entirely of one tall window overlooking the ocean outside. They sat down side by side, her hand still in his, and for a few long minutes only regarded the waves crashing against the sand.

"Alexander was my mentor," he told her at last. "He talked me into joining, gave me the humanitarian and peace-keeping armada speech and pinned the forth pip on my collar the day I made captain. I don't know where it all went wrong, if it was the war with the Klingons or the responsibility of being head of Starfleet while the entire Federation was at risk. Though it's been two years already, I can't believe that the man I knew could have allowed himself to be so far gone as to almost kill his own daughter, a daughter I know he loves."

Kati's eyes didn't stray from the window, her turbulent past stubbornly knocking on the door of her present. She knew all too well what kind of scars war left on one's soul. She bore them as well, but even so she had trouble empathizing with Marcus. Her only response was to grip Christopher's hand tighter in reassurance.

"He did kill Carol," she said. "But in all fairness, he was aiming for us and she got in the way."

"Defense by intention to commit genocide? Too bad his lawyer didn't think of that one at the court martial."

She smiled ruefully. "For the obvious reasons, that's about the best I've got."

He shifted closer, his knee touching her, his body a steady warmth at her side. Kati rested her temple on his shoulder, basking in the citrus scent of his aftershave. A comforting silence descended around them like a warming clock, lasting until Carol called him.

# # #

Carol had visited her father in confinement before, the last time being right before leaving Federation space to be with Khan on Menkar. That had gone less than well, her imparting of the news devolving in a screaming match, during which she had said a number of things she now regretted. But even if that weren't so, she still felt a measure of discomfort at seeing her Dad diminished like this, stripped of his rank and uniform, devoid of the things he had most cared about and banished from his beloved Starfleet.

She had passed quietly all the required security protocols, as the facility her father was confined to had much sterner rules than the average penal colony, with Admiral Pike at her side. They were lead down to a long corridor and to a visitor's lounge that looked no different than a well-appointed living-room, which given the sensitive nature of the conversation about to be conducted there, was empty of any other occupants. Pike gave her a reassuring smile and gently squeezed on her left shoulder. Carol smiled back, doing her best to appear poised and collected, when she felt none of those things, and nodded him off. He seemed to hesitate briefly but then thought the better of whatever it was that he had meant to say and left.

Taking a deep breath, Carol sank into the plush comfort of a nearby armchair. The second of the chamber's doors opened. She instinctively got to her feet, her trepidation increasing.

"Hello, Dad."

TBC


	6. Chapter 6

Carol felt no small amount of heart-break at the sight of her father: confinement had not been good to him. He had aged visibly, the lines on his face deepening and the hair at his temples had gone completely white. But he still held himself proudly, his back a firm, straight line, the setting of his mouth stern. His eyes lit up at the sight of her and he smiled, crossing the room in a few quick strides to put his arms around her and hug her tightly. Carol rested her head on his chest, the elation at seeing her parent again soaring and momentarily appeasing her frayed nerves. He held her for a long time, before taking a step back, his hands still on her shoulders. He looked her over with great concern, but his expression was still soft and familiar.

"You don't look so well. Are you sick?"

She shook her head. "I'm fine, Dad," she insisted, even as he gave her a skeptical once-over. Carol wasn't ready to tell him about her child, unsure of his reaction, at least not until she found out why he had asked for her. "And how are you?"

He gave her a wry smile. "Enjoying the time off." His attempt at humor fell flat, the crease between his eyebrows only sinking further. "Come on, let's sit down, before you keel over," he added.

Carol didn't take the bait, merely allowing him to lead her back to her armchair. They sat opposite from each other with a small coffee table between them. The atmosphere remained charged. Her previous anxiety spiked again and she self-consciously placed a protective hand on her stomach. Looking at him now was like looking a stranger: the father who had betrayed her personally and the admiral who had betrayed Starfleet and their ideals, but at the same time still her parent, the man who had taught her those very ideals and in front of whom she still felt like a little girl seeking approval.

"I missed you, Carol," he said earnestly.

"I missed you, too, Dad... but that's not why you wanted to see me for the fist time in a year, is it?"

He grimaced sightly and leaned back in his seat, crossing his legs as he did. His expression became cold and distant. "Like I said, I've had a lot of time on my hands lately so as I've been thinking, it occurred to me that I never said I'm sorry for sending you to Ceti Alpha V, to... that man, to begin with. I don't have to tell you how bad the war was going and how desperately we needed an advantage, any advantage, but that doesn't justify what I did to you of all people. And I am sorry, Carol. Everything that happened to you these past years is on me."

She reached and squeezed his hand. "It's alright, Dad, I forgive you, but I'm not the only one you should apologize to."

Her father gripped her had, retaining it. "What did he do to you, Carol? Whatever it is, you can be helped. It's not too late. You can still come home."

"Home? What home, Dad? You're in prison and in the eyes of Starfleet I'll always be that traitor's daughter connected to an augment dictator through some dubious agreement. But that's not why I left, nor am I with Khan to exact some twisted revenge on you. I meant what I said: I do forgive you. As for Khan, I'm with him, because I choose to."

Throughout her tirade, he regarded her impassively, while still holding her hand, only at the end, when she mentioned her choice to be with Khan, he suddenly looked affronted, as if her words had been a personal insult. She reminded herself of her ultimate goal in having this conversation and the importance of not letting herself get railed up, especially with the way her hormones were running amok due to the pregnancy.

"Are you trying to convince me or yourself, Carol?"

"No, Dad, I'm not trying to convince you of anything. I know you'll never accept that I'm not coming back. Even if my relationship with Khan were to break down, I'd still be staying on Ceti Alpha V. I can make a difference there, one that matters to me, and nobody, not even you could make me feel ashamed of it."

"Then I'm sorry, Carol, but you're leaving me no choice: I'll tell Chris what he wants to know about my bio-weaponry initiative, but one bit of information at a time, and I'll speak only to you and to you alone. In exchange, you'll stay here on Earth and get help for whatever Khan did to you."

Carol pried her hand from his hold, her palm itching to slap him again, even as she still felt guilty for the last time she had hit in an outburst of fury. "You really mean that, don't you?" she mumbled stunned at his presumption. She paused waiting for him to nod his confirmation. "You really think you're the only one who's right and the rest of us are all in the wrong! Is this how you manage to sleep at night? By repeating to yourself over and over again that you did it all for the greater good and that the augments aren't really people? That the only way I could feel something for Khan was because he tricked me into it?"

Although her outrage was genuine, her father had unknowingly struck a chord. She wasn't about to tell him something so intimate and delicate, but Khan had indeed tried to manipulate her, not into loving him, but merely into siding him and as an afterthought vengeance against her father. But the crucial difference between the two was that when the chips had been down, Khan had given her an honest choice of coming with him. Carol would have not even considered it, any other way. To her horror, she comprehended that she would have preferred that her father's motivation had resided in something pettier and more selfish like power hunger or wanting to control her life. That was somehow less terrifying than the idea that he had twice plotted genocide, because he was a fanatic who singled out a group of sentient beings as disposable simply because of their DNA. She stood, the grim realization making her stomach churn and bile rise in her throat, and drew herself to full height in order to tower over his still seated form. There was a funny ringing in her ears as she moved.

The keen eyes of a stranger looked up at her beseechingly. "Carol, I can help you and whether they understand it or not, I can help Starfleet, too. Those bugs I had made would allow the Federation to negotiate with the Klingons from a position of power. They could be altered to keep the Romulans at bay, should they come out of isolation again. In fact, they could be used as a deterrent against any potentially hostile alien race we encounter. The galaxy isn't a warm and cozy place just waiting for us to explore it and come back home with samples and knowledge about comets to collect medals at the end of five-year missions. It's dangerous and ridden with expansionist empires, crime syndicates and pirates. Starfleet is living a pipe dream. They might not want to need me or Section 31, but that doesn't mean they don't."

"Maybe," she snapped, overcome by the surreal sensation of truly seeing him as he was for the first time. "But that's not my problem. I'm no longer an officer so I have no duty towards Starfleet any more than I have one to you. You're no longer my only family. I have a husband... and I will soon have a baby, too. My first responsibility is to her and even as we speak, I'm failing her, putting her at risk so I could cater to your whims and discuss means versus ends with someone who thinks he can't possibly be mistaken. It's over, Dad. So let me see if I can put it in a language you'll understand: if you don't give me that location, I will go to the press and give them the entire sordid tale of a former head of Starfleet who sold his own daughter to Khan Noonien Singh in exchange for weapons, complete with the story of a secret paragraph in the Starfleet Charter, one that predates even the Federation. That will give you the occasion you covet to explain yourself to its alien members. Maybe you'll enlighten them on your definition of right and wrong, because it certainly escape me."

He methodically got to his feet, eying her implacably. "You can't... ."

"Why not? Because Section 31 might come after me, if I expose them. No, they won't, because they know what will happen to them if they do. And you don't get to blackmail me, because if you do, I'll dig Starfleet so deep into a public relations scandal, that it will take it decades and new legislation to crawl its way out of it." She took a step closer to him. "I know you, Father. No matter what deluded views you might hold, you'll always be an officer and no court martial could ever truly strip you of the uniform. Now, in Khan's words, shall we begin?"

# # #

Carol lay in bed in her reserve at King Edward Memorial Hospital, staring at the cerulean skies of Western Australia. She had fainted shortly after her meeting with her father, but other than a minor dehydration, she was fine and thankfully, so was her daughter. McCoy had come down from Starfleet Medical for a second opinion, given that he was the only person in the universe to have experience with her condition, and had advised that they kept her overnight for observation. Now that the adrenaline of her confrontation with her Dad had worn off, she felt drained, hollowed out on the inside. She knew she had done the right thing: the threat of the biological weapons he had ordered to be manufactured in defiance of everything Starfleet stood for could not be allowed to continue, a ticking bomb suspended in the immensity of space. Nor could she let him dictate what to do with her life and indirectly with her baby's future. It was bad enough that she had kept the pregnancy from Khan and already endangered both hers and her daughter's health to come to Earth. She was not a hand-string puppet her father could manipulate as he saw fit and she would not let him hold any populace hostage, if she could prevent it.

Though she did not regret her backing him into a corner to get him to tell the truth, she was fully aware that this was the final nail in the coffin of their relationship. Betrayal had been written in every line of his face, as she had said the words. Betrayal and pain. He had no responded to her attempt to say good-bye, looking deflated, as though he had not for one second expected her to threaten him with the good of Starfleet. Since she had been getting increasingly dizzy and concerned for her own daughter, Carol had been forced to seek immediate medical assistance. Her father had also no commented on his grand-child and Carol had to wonder if by carrying Khan's baby, she had become tainted by association in his view, gone beyond redemption. The thought stung, the hurt taking deep roots within her heart, but she could not dwell on it: not now and not any time soon. Despite everything, he was still her father, she still loved him and missed their former excellent relationship.

She had meant what she had told her father: her baby had become her utmost priority, especially as her daughter would not have it easy. She was a unique hybrid bearing an unlikely combination of human and augment genes and would grow up under challenging circumstances, on a colony that still fought to survive sometimes quite literally in the harsh environment of Ceti Alpha V. Carol also had to factor the fact that she and Khan were fundamentally different people still struggling to reach even ground in their marriage, while sharing divergent understandings of love and means to express it. But even now, as she felt unbearably alone on her own home planet, strapped to the Federation's most advanced medical technology. Surrounded by every comfort, she longed to be in Khan's arms. For the first time in their complicated relationship, his reckless and violent love for her provided reassurance instead of worrying her. She knew beyond any doubt that he would do anything to protect their daughter and their family and the thought was soothing.

# # #

Christopher walked into the visitors lounges attached to the Pregnancy Center at King Edward Memorial Hospital to find Kati standing by the window staring outside. She seemed calmer than when they had been let know that Carol had fainted just as she had been about to leave the penal colony, where Alexander Marcus was held, but that was mostly because she was now quiet instead of proffering threats to the physical integrity of the former admiral. Christ could not help but empathize with at least some of her anger. His once mentor had had the gal to put Starfleet over a barrel solely so he could basically hold his daughter hostage on Earth. The disappointment was so bitter, it almost eclipsed all of Alexander's previous betrayals and was made worse by the guilt Chris felt in unknowingly aiding in the attempt and putting Carol's life and that of her unborn baby at risk as a result.

"Was it worth it?" Kati asked softly, her voice tainted by sadness.

He lowered the hand he had raised to rest on her shoulder. The information Carol had managed to wring out of Marcus would have to be verified, while they proceeded with great care as if not to make a bad situation worse, before starting on the arduous task of getting rid of biological weapons and placing the the intelligence Starfleet would recover on it under lock and key. Even then, it would not be over. Trials of the scientists involved in these illegal activities would follow, further blemishes on the record of the fleet. But the most terrible thing of all was that for generations, officers in his position would have to live in fear that knowledge of these pathogens Marcus had so unwittingly created would get out and potentially fall into the wrong hands. It was a legacy of shame that would bestow a great burden onto the future.

So he didn't reply to Kati's question, because truth be told, he didn't have an answer himself.

TBC


	7. Chapter 7

_The augment colony converged towards a massive, tall building in the center. Its first floor was occupied by a large conference room used for political and administrative purposes, while the upper levels consisted of offices and the control rooms for the colony's defense system as well as the observation post on the edge of the Mutara Nebula. Both were of vital importance, given the fragile position of the Ceti Alpha system. The closest explored space belonged to the Federation, with which they had an uneasy entente, but even past that border stretched nothing but a vast emptiness all the way to the distant Velara Base and Alcyone. The little known Gorn Hegemony and the Klingon Empire, their other neighbors, were a lot farther away, which heightened their isolation for both better and worse. _

_However, the immediate security threat came not from the established interstellar powers. The Federation and the Klingon Empire were still exhausted by their recent conflict and struggling to recover. The mysterious Romulan Star Empire preferred total isolations. Similarly the Tholians only cared about themselves and their space. The Cardassians had been slowly agonizing their way to decay for centuries now. Under the circumstances both the Beta and Alpha quadrants were at the mercy of privateers and crime lords. The Orion Syndicate had practically built an empire of its own. _

_Khan knew an attack from them was inevitable. He had taken a calculated risk into going after the Syndicate to supplement the technological needs of the colony and permitting their run-away slaves to settle on the planet. But even if he hadn't, he was aware it was only a matter of time, until their isolated position and lack of a fleet would make them a target for marauders. So instead of waiting for it to happen, he had opted to take the initiative, acquire what they needed while at it, and provoke the largest and most dangerous wolf in the pack. A decisive victory against the Syndicate would send a strong message to whoever would otherwise make the mistake of thinking them easy prey. The fact that he would strike at slave-traders in doing so was merely a welcome bonus._

_Meanwhile, they had prepared. Despite the difficulties in making the unorthodox blend of left-over Federation technology with that raided from the Orions and what they had managed to buy off the interstellar marked, they had a functional, albeit skeletal defense system; he had maintained the Vengeance in good operating order and had ordered regular evacuation drills to the safety of the Morningstar Mountains for both his people and their new Orion neighbors. He was just in the process of reviewing the results of the latest such exercise. The augments had fought in a war together and had all the discipline of a soldier so even with children slowing them down, they always moved fast and with great efficiency to the chrysalite caves, but as former slaves, the Orions tended to adopt a defeatist attitude, panicked easily and failed to evacuate at optimal speed. Ling had made him a few recommendations to improve on that._

_The doors to his office unsealed themselves and familiar steps walked up to him. Her perfume reached him first: a subtle combination of iris and the zesty scent of alien flowers. Carol came to stand behind his chair, her eyes sweeping over the screen of his computer. _

"_The evacuation drills for the Orion settlement are still not working out, are they?" she asked, her hair brushing faintly against the side of his face, as she leaned over to read past his shoulder. _

"_No," he admitted. "But Ling has the situation well in hand." _

_Carol pulled herself a chair to sit next to him. "Ling is very efficient, but she can come across as harsh, especially to people who are not used to keeping up with your pace. Maybe she could use a hand from someone more personable."_

_He considered it."I know, but you barely have time to sleep and I cannot spare Otto and Idir from their work on the installations, or Kati from the hydroponics, for that matter."_

_Her brow furrowed in thought. "It might be premature, but... ."_

_She was interrupted by an alarm sounding from his terminal. From the corner of his eye, Khan saw her jump to her feet, because the sound was familiar to them both: it was a red alert sent by the observation post outside their system. He pressed a few keys on his console, prompting a holographic imagine of the incoming transmission: no less than eight ships had just entered the Mutara Nebula. The sensors were too weak to conduct any spectral analysis so they had no way of knowing what kind of ships they were, but he was certain they heralded no good news. He didn't even have to give the word, because she scurried away, ripping open the cover of a panel by the door and entering a sequence of codes into it. _

_The general alarm blared through the building. It was not a unique occurrence, as the warning would ring in every building on the planet, both augment and Orion, as well as put the automatic system of the Vengeance on high alert. Khan activated the comm system to contact Ling._

"_Ling, coordinate the evacuation of the Orions," he ordered. "Otto is to do the same with our children." He lifted his eyes to Joaquin who had just burst into the room. "Joaquin, you will stay here in charge of the ground defense, should it be needed. Have Kati, Zuleika, Idir and Daniel meet me on the Vengeance."_

_He flickered a gaze to Carol. Her relaxed posture was gone, replaced with the tension radiating from the terse line of her shoulders and the severity of her expression. For a split second he hesitated. The correct tactical decision was to take her with him, as she not only the only weapons expert he had and, as a trained Starfleet officer, she had experience with various 23rd century military threats. Moreover, she was never the one to shy away from a fight and would be the first to protest, if she so much as suspected he would leave her behind to protect her. He had ordered friends into combat before, but it was different with her, because she was his and his only, separated in his heart from the duty to protect his family. He had almost lost her once and did not want to give her up again. But to shield her from harm against her will would infringe upon one of the traits he most admired in her: the strength of her character. _

"_Carol, you are also coming," he said, voicing it as a suggestion rather than a command. _

_She did not reply verbally, merely nodding in confirmation. Something tight coiled in the left side of his torso, even as he steeled himself inside, his mind already calculating between strategies both new and planned-ahead. He rushed past Joaquin on his way out, deliberately measuring his steps so that his wife could keep up, and his eyes briefly met those of his old friend. Understanding flared in Joaquin's dark orbs, as his second in command seemed to tacitly try to convey that his family would not have judged him, had he made other decision about Carol. _

_They had no transporter facilities outside the Vengeance, but Khan had swiped a few portable beaming devices from Section 31, back when they still had a base on his planet. One was located in an emergency compartment on the command level of the meeting house. He and Carol used it in turns to get to the bridge of the Vengeance._

_The static discharges and the highly ionized gases in the Mutara Nebula rendered sensors, communications and even shields either unreliable or completely inoperable, depending on the ship, but Khan and his people had had ample time to explore the cloud and modify their equipment accordingly. Any captain with a modicum of sense would attempt to compensate for the disadvantage by trying to cross the Nebula at maximum warp speed, which would under normal circumstances be a good a strategy, but the Vengeance's ability to interfere with another ship's warp bubble trumped that move._

_Khan used his knowledge of the nebula to drop atop the enemy fleet. Surely enough, it was composed of five Orion interceptors and three Naussicaan raiders that, according to Carol, had come along for the plundering. He had the Vengeance maneuvered to force the invading ships to drop out of warp. The confusion caused by their inability to communicate with each other had made them easy pickings for the Vengeance, the shields of which took the few hits that had managed not to miss in stride. It had been more of an effort to disable the opposing ships in such a manner that they would not be all completely destroyed, as they could be of service, once repaired. He had initially wanted their crew killed, but Carol had insisted upon only beaming them directly to the brig, arguing that they could have valuable information and perhaps be of use to them in some other capacity in the future. _

_The battle was over quickly. Towing the impaired invading ships back to Menkar had been much more work and taken a great deal of synchronization. Then Carol had visited their Orion guests to make sure they were fairing well after the scare of their former masters possibly returning. At last, he had found her on the Vengeance, in the command center of the weapons bay, cataloging the impact of the fight and evaluating the performance of the defense systems. It was important work to be certain, but nothing stringent. Still her sense of duty compelled her to do it instead of resting, given the trying day she had just had._

_Khan drank in the sight of her. Normally he had a firm enough grip on his body and its responses, not to allow the carousel of wayward adrenaline reactions cloud his judgment in combat situations. Fog of war brought about enough complications without throwing impulsiveness into the mix. Besides, starship battles were devoid of any physicality and his body was probably making it up for it. But regardless of how short and lacking in casualties on his side the fight had been, he was still overcome by both relief and gratitude at seeing Carol alive, well and preoccupied with torpedoes. On the footsteps of the exuberance came passion and he did not waver, as he strode up to her, prompting her to lift her head to look at him. There was a question in those beautifully mismatched eyes. _

_The answer was burning in his veins, his desire ratcheting up a notch at her trustful expression. His hearing zeroed onto the beating of her heart, echoing faintly in the still room. He grabbed her by the shoulders to raise her from her seat and pressed her up to him so he could crush his mouth to hers in a ravenous kiss. His teeth tugged on her lower lip, before thrusting his tongue inside her mouth, demanding nothing less than absolute control of the kiss. She opened to him, her mouth sweet and pliant against his, as her hands slipped under his shirt to stroke against the skin of his back. He shivered at the gentleness in her touch but could not find it within himself to slow down in response. Normally he did not allow himself to be so far gone as to not be at least marginally mindful of the discrepancy of physical strength between them. But this time it was different. He only clutched her tighter, wishing he could imprint the memory of her touch onto his very ribs._

_However, Carol was not asking him to stop but instead losing herself in his embrace, eyes closed, an expression of abandonment etched onto her face. He tore his mouth from hers to nip his way down her neck. The material of her blouse broke under the pressure of his fingers scrambling to pull it off her left shoulder in their haste to get to her skin. _

"_I love you," she whispered. _

_His head snapped up. Her eyes were now open, her pupils blown wide, and glittering with both heat and tenderness. She smiled with unmitigated joy at him. The same emotion bubbled into his chest. She lifted a hand to his face, smoothing the creases between his eyebrows with her index finger. His eyelids fluttered and he leaned in closer to kiss her again this time with savoring softness. _

_# # #_

_Carol did not understand how she had ended up in San Francisco, but she was there now, wandering the eerily empty streets of the area around Starfleet HQ, her baby daughter held tight against her chest. Her heart and mind were racing, terror washing over her in waves. They were after her child, who was crying loudly, hiccuping as she did. Carol begged her to be quiet or else they would find them. To no avail. She heard a faint hum above her and looked up, her arms trembling around the tiny, fragile body of her first-born. The shuttle closed in on her and through its front window, she could see her father inside, once more wearing the uniform of a Starfleet admiral. Carol screamed... ._

She woke up to Kati's soothing words, her friend's concerned face filling her view. Carol looked past her to discover she was still in the hospital room in Perth. She sucked in a deep breath, trying to calm herself. Kati was calling for a doctor over the comm system. Carol's head lolled on the pillow, even as she grasped onto the augment's sleeve.

"Kati," she murmured. "Let's go home."

TBC


	8. Chapter 8

Uhura strapped her hair in a ponytail and surveyed her reflection in the mirror one final time, admiring her electric green California sunset dress, which had apparently made a come-back in Earth fashion since the Enterprise had set sail on her five-year mission. She sauntered out of the bathroom and and into the living-room, where Spock was engrossed in his pad. True to form, he was not relaxing on the couch but sat behind the desk by the window as stiffly as he did at his science station on the bridge of the Enterprise. There was even the customary deep crease between his furrowed eyebrows.

She smiled fondly. "Are you sure you don't want to come?"

He lifted his head and his left eyebrow. "Nyota, that would be illogical, as I do not engage in the consumption of alcohol and I have already declined both your and Jim's offer."

She moved to stand in front of him in order to press the joined index and middle finger of her right hand together and held them out to him. "I was kidding," she said. "I'll tell Jim and the others you said hello."

He reciprocated by pressing his own index and middle finger to hers. Her skin tingled at the contact. Brown eyes considered her carefully. "Thank you, Nyota."

She withdrew her hand. "Have fun," she added inclining her head in the direction of the pad in his hands.

# # #

Nyota strutted into the club, unconsciously adapting the rhythm of her steps to that of the latest brand of technolo to infest trendy clubs all over Federation territory. Normally she detested that repetitive collection of dull and conventional beats and wondered why Jim, the organizer of their outing, had picked this place after all. It skewed towards the fashionable and looked all too clean, pretending to be avant-garde with its kitschy mix of San Francisco colonial architecture and alien décor. It was also located in the Greater Area, close to Starfleet installations, and hence was brimming with off-duty officers and related personnel. As she made her way through the thongs of gyrating dancers and waiters balancing their drink trays, she even had to nod at a few familiar faces. For all his boisterous facade of a cocky hick on a roll, Jim had good tastes and something of a sentimental streak, and while they were in San Francisco, he usually lead them on a trek to smoky dives that had actual live music and non-replicated alcohol.

Perhaps it was a result of their diminished numbers. Their ship would remain in the Sol system for a few more days, taking this unexpected opportunity to have the impact of one too many ion storms erased from the hull in addition to a full technical overview and restocking of fuel and supplies. So Jim had given anyone not strictly needed for those tasks shore leave. The captain himself had all but strapped himself to the warp core to avoid leaving his beloved Enterprise alone in space dock and in the hands of strangers, but McCoy had gleefully used his authority as CMO to dispatch him to Earth. Speaking of which, Bones was in Australia, tending to Carol, who was not doing well. Sulu had also declined to join them tonight, lured to Mars by a botanical conference. So it was just Jim, her, Scotty – whom Jim had probably dragged away from their ship kicking and screaming – Keeser and Chekov, who was excitedly recounting something to his colleagues and enthusiastically waved her over to their table, the second he had noticed her.

Uhura squeezed on the narrow bench next to Keenser. "Since when are we so on trend?" she asked gesturing one-handedly to their surroundings.

"Why don't ya ask Captain Perfect Hair over there," Scotty quipped, jabbing a finger at Kirk over the table.

Jim just shrugged. Nyota flagged down a waitress and requested a shot of Jack. "Spock says hi," she uttered unconvincingly, prompting Jim to snort in his drink, Scotty to roll his eyes and Chekov to look like a deer in the highlights.

There was a heated conversation at the table right behind her, the nuances of which seemed to escape Pasha at first, as he had resumed his tale of great Russian inventions, both apocryphal and authentic. Her Jack arrived and she drained it in one gulp. Jim asked the server for a bottle, the words rolling off his tongue dry and stringent. The voices behind her grew louder, almost drawing Chekov's. Nyota felt a knot coil tight in the pit of her stomach, even as ear began to burn, unable to believe what she was hearing. Usually she had a firm grip on her temper, but this one hit too close to home. The name of Admiral Pike floated over in a clear shout and Chekov fell instantly silent, his eyes flicking to Kirk, a question written all over the younger man's features.

"Captain," Pasha started in a wary voice.

Jim cut him off with a curt shake of his head. Uhura licked her lips chasing the taste of whiskey off them. She had a feeling the discussion they were currently overhearing had been going on for a while now.

Scotty leaned over the table to murmur conspiratorially. "You picked one hell of a time to class us up, Jimbo."

A muscle clicked in Kirk's jaw but he offered no verbal response. The waitress came with their bottle and Jim took the opportunity to refill all of their glasses. It was probably not the wisest thing they could do under the circumstances.

Gossip was as common in Starfleet as everywhere else and the adventures and misadventures of Command were always a popular subject, but Admiral Pike tended to be less of a topic. He had never been involved in anything scandalous, his record was immaculate and he was generally well liked. Over the past year, however, that had gradually changed, as a the rumor of his spending his downtime with an augment from the Ceti Alpha V colony had started to emerge. Uhura had caught wind of it on a starbase, as nobody on the Enterprise would dare join in such impertinent talks. If they were, it wouldn't be Jim's wrath they would have to fear first and foremost, but hers.

The words "genetic freak", "wrong" and "impaired judgment" filtered through the incessant bass, the chatter and the laughter. Jim's knuckles around his tumbler were white. Keenser shot her a pleading look. She reached over the table and rested her palm over her friend's and captain's wrist. He gave her a tight smile. Thusly reassured, she let go and leaned back. The discussion conducted by the officers sitting behind them was becoming louder and louder, obviously fueled by the flow of alcohol. Someone at a nearby table had joined in, adding their own input to the debate over the appropriateness of how Admiral Pike was spending his off-duty hours. A memory of Spock talking about the prejudice surrounding his parents' marriage and the bullying he had endured as a child surfaced into her mind. Spock had only mentioned it once. Only once.

Her vision burned red and limited itself to a tunnel focus. No thought or hesitation tainted the buzz generated by the three shots she had ingested in quick succession. She got to her feet.

# # #

Carol had been prohibited by Kati to contribute in any way to the packing and the preparing for departure effort. Carol had initially wanted to resist but then realized it might not be such a bad idea and opted for lying down. She was plagued with uncertainties and felt weary, as the nightmares had not let her rest properly in the hospital. She had been considering telling Khan about the baby via subspace, however he deserved to vent his well-deserved anger at her in person. This was by no means a minor secret she had been keeping from him. To boot, she had brought politics back into their personal relationship by making a private choice from her position of authority on Menkar rather than as a wife and mother and hence, manipulated him for what she saw as the benefit of him, the colony and the people her father prospectively threatened. This was big.

Khan was not hurricane in a bottle. He was a planet-wide tornado during an ion storm in a bottle. He could be remarkably contained, more calculated on average than she was, but every now and then hints of that ferocious intensity within surfaced. However, the thing that was quintessentially him was his thinking predominately in military terms, which made sense, given that he had been at war his entire life. He even approached their relationship on the same terms. For instance, after her return to the colony, every step in her direction had been part of a choreographed strategy to win her back, a strategy he executed with great patience, waiting her out, apologizing again and again yet not so much that it could become stifling and presenting her with tokens of affections, rare enough not to be overwhelming or make him seem pushy. Carol did not begrudge him that; it was who he was and truth be told, she had found his abnegation rather endearing. Still she could not imagine how something so major would impact their marriage that had been finally on the mend.

There was a knock on the door and Carol invited Kati in. She did, carrying a tray of fruit and steaming tea mugs.

"Before you express any gratitude, you should know that this is a bribe," Kati said with a slight smile, albeit her face was all too serious.

"What kind of bribe?" Carol asked, as her friend arranged the tray on the nightstand.

Kati sat on the edge of the bed. "Khan commed me while we were still on the Enterprise, en route to Earth. He thought you were ill and keeping it from him for some reason. He ordered me to tell him what was wrong with you. I refused."

Carol froze, the enormity of what Kati was telling her hitting her full force. "Have you ever disobeyed one of his orders before?"

"No, none of us has. We swore to live and die at his command and in return, he never let us down. But I promised you I would be there for you."

Carol reached to squeeze the augment's hand, hoping her face conveyed at least a fraction of the gratitude he felt. "I don't know what to say. Thank you suddenly seems so meaningless."

"Say that you won't interfere but let me sort this out with him."

"Of course. It's the least I can do."

TBC


	9. Chapter 9

On a regular day Admiral Christopher Pike was proud of his job, which provided him with meaning and a great sense of accomplishment. There was, of course, the odd exception when he had to play the part of a school principal lecturing his troubled students. In his case, those were the senior officers aboard the flagship. James Kirk's not getting into a bar fight every week was a gift horse he chose not to look into the mouth. He had no idea how he had managed to jinx that, but he had. Lieutenant Uhura, on the other hand, was the second less likely person on the Enterprise to get herself into that sort of trouble. She had an exemplary record as a cadet, marvelous academic achievements and was beyond the shadow of a doubt the best communications officer in the fleet, coveted by every other captain and published by every major journal of xenolinguistics in the Federation.

Montgomery Scott, the chief engineer, was and was not the bar fighting type. It wasn't that he wasn't brilliant, because he was, or that he lacked discipline, because he didn't per se. It was just that his people's skills were all over the map, much like the CMO's bed-side manner, and he had a big mouth and a penchant for making poor, helpless dogs disappear in transporter experiments. The rumor mill claimed his only hobby was alcohol, one he shared with McCoy. Ironically enough, the only person on the ship who was rumored not to drink was Spock, the serene Vulcan hybrid stuck in close quarters with all these people. Young Ensigh Chekov's only issue seemed to be his delusions of grandeur regarding Russia, which by Enterprise's standards made him probably the sanest person on board. Sometimes Chris had to wonder how he had made it all the way to admiral, considering his decision to give his ship to this particular group of officers.

He encompassed the Enterprise's captain, chief engineer, his assistant, navigator and communications officer again in one single severe look. Spock stood apart, by the window, his back a perfect vertical line, his cap clutched in his hands. He had been the one to spring his worse for the wear colleagues from the local police.

"I don't suppose I have to ask who started it," he said tiredly, his eyes drifting from the incident report on the pad on his desk to James Kirk.

The captain of the Enterprise took a single step forward and clicked his heels together. He was not in uniform, of course, but in his favorite off-duty attire: jeans and leather jacket. He had a black eye and a cut above his swollen upper lip. "Sir, I take full responsibility," he said firmly. "This was my fault."

Lieutenant Uhura's eyes went wide and she opened her mouth to speak presumably to defend him, but Chris waved her silent. "Out! You're dismissed, all of you. Kirk, stay." He pointed to the chair across the desk from him.

James obeyed dutifully, but his subordinates were less inclined so. Even Spock hesitated, casting his captain an insistent look, before departing. He was the first to leave. The others did so at the slowest pace possible. Chekov looked about to cry, as he did, his visage apologetic. Chris bet he hero-worshiped James, who was a bit too stoic and suspiciously not talking back. Something was wrong with this picture. Chris scrubbed a hand over his face, once it was just he and Kirk.

"Getting into a bar fight with HQ officers is a bit extreme even for you, James. So what's the story here? What really happened?"

"I was drunk, threw a few punches and my fellow officers got dragged into it, when they tried to hold me back," James blurted in one breath. "As you undoubtedly remember, Sir, we've met under similar circumstances."

Chris had read the captain of the Enterprise the riot act more than once over his pattern of lying on official reports and knew when his answers sounded rehearsed and when he was trying to distract him. This one was up there with the best of them. James was taking a bullet for his colleagues and Chris had a sneaking suspicion that in a bizarre twist of events, this was somehow Lieutenant Uhura's fault. He racked his eyes over Kirk's figure: his body language screamed determination and the firm lines of his face indicated that no torture in the universe or amount of pleading would get the truth out of him.

"There will be a formal reprimand in your file. It will follow you for the rest of your career, son."

James nodded glumly. "I understand that, Sir."

Christopher sighed and stood, placing his weight on his cane. He walked to stand by the large window occupying one of the walls of his office. "I guess that's that then." He paused. "Your mission to Tau Ceti was canceled. You are to take the Enterprise to the Azure Nebula, by the Klingon border, and search for a space laboratory former Admiral Marcus claims he ordered be built there. Your orders are to assess its status, take possession of it and take anyone you find inside to the nearest starbase for questioning, all without drawing the attention of the Klingons or of the nearby Romulan Empire."

Kirk frowned, looking slightly troubled. "What am I supposed to find in that lab?"

"Biological weapons."

The young officer got to his feet as well, his scowl deepening. "Targeted at the Klingons."

Chris looked him straight in the eye with an unyielding gaze. "Hopefully targeted only at the Klingons. Needless to say, your mission is high priority and classified. You are authorized to share the specifics only with those of your crew who absolutely have to know. James, I have no idea what you're going to find there so watch yourself and your people on this one."

Kirk nodded. "Yes, Sir."

Christopher studied him attentively. "I mean it, Captain. Dot your Is and cross your Ts. When this comes down, it will come down hard and I don't want it to drag the Enterprise along with it... or drag us all right back into war with one of neighbors."

Kirk practically unfurled, straightening himself up and adopting such a posture that despite his less than dignified look, he appeared to be every inch the captain of the flagship. He nodded once.

Christopher returned to his desk. "But I can't think of a better ship or finer crew to send to deal with this."

# # #

Christopher had ordered the USS Yorkshire that was scheduled to depart for the Pleadies Cluster to make a detour to drop Kati and Carol on the edge of the Mutara Nebula. After the being released from the hospital, Carol could stand on her own but still looked sickly and pale. Chris had thanked her for her assistance and though the feeling was sincere, the words had tasted sour on his tongue, burdened as he was with guilt over the unintended suffering he had inflicted upon her. He had taken it upon himself to make this trip happen as quickly as possible, pulling rank to get it done and ignoring the whispers of colleagues, who were wary of her reputation and would have perhaps wanted to wait until the information passed on from her father was confirmed. But as far as he was concerned, Carol had more than paid her dues and deserved to be back on the planet of her choice and be with her partner at such an important moment in their lives, regardless of that man was.

While McCoy, who had insisted on coming to see them off, settled Carol in the shuttle that was to take them to the Yorkshire anchored in the Starfleet dock. That left him and Kati in the busy shuttle hanger, the fury of activity that never stopped booming around them. They were outside the intimate confinements of their personal relationship, having said their private goodbyes earlier on. He was back in uniform and she was about to leave. They stood almost a full meter apart, the distance between them a bottomless chasm, and she held herself stiffly, her expression stuttered. For a while none uttered a single word.

He balked at the idea of letting go of someone who had become important to him simply because she had an inopportune genome, but even he had to admit that Kati was right about the uneasy nature of their relationship, which was a long-distance one in which every step forward was followed by two backwards, all taken on thin ice. But Chris had never in his life backed down from a challenged: it explained probably why he had talked an Iowa punk with a wrap-sheet a mile long and a famous name into joining Starfleet and promised himself he would make a captain out of him. It was how he had braved through the many dark nights of the soul caused by having a job that sometimes involved ordering fine officers and occasional friends to both certain and probable death. Still as the seconds ticked by and he stood in front of Kati with words that could not be said in public weighing heavily on his mind, he wished he could parse through the maelstrom of emotions clouding her almond-shaped eyes. He was good enough of a judge of character to guess she was holding something back and estimated that if she could share it with him, she would have. At least, he hoped she would.

"How is she?" he finally asked. He didn't give Kati a name. He didn't have to.

"Rattled," Kati replied, pursing her lips tightly together as soon as the word flew off them. She seemed to hesitate but then extended a hand to him. "Goodbye, Christopher."

He clasped her fingers, squeezing them in what he longed to be reassurance. "Let me know when you arrive."

# # #

McCoy did his best not to hover, which was not easy, considering that it was part of his description. He had given the CMO aboard the Yorkshire advance notice of Carol's needs, but he still felt he could do something more for her, even if he did not know what. They were early so the shuttle was empty and the pilot's console was still deserted.

"I heard you and Dr. Niwara hit it off," he said by means of opening.

Carol shifted in her seat trying to make herself comfortable. "She jumped at the opportunity, like you said. She will come to Ceti Alpha V, as soon as she is done putting her affairs on Cait in order."

He nodded distantly and pulled his tricorder to scan her one last time.

"Even I couldn't have gotten that much worse in the ten minutes since you last did that," she joked.

He grunted, scowling at her readings. Her vitals were slightly off, but not dangerously so and her baby was doing just fine, seeming healthier than her mother, which was no surprise given that Carol's problems were more of psychosomatic nature. "You didn't," he mumbled. "You're good to go," he added louder.

"Yeah, I'm fine," she said sardonically, turning her head to stare at the busy hanger outside through the window.

"Look, I know it's none of my business, but... ."

"I didn't tell him," she interrupted. She swallowed hard as if past a lump in her throat and gazed back at him. "But at least, I've settled my relationship with my father... as in I don't have one anymore. I also caused a rift between two life-long friends, possibly broken a chain of command and I'm on my way to start a family with a major fall-out with my husband... ." She paused to draw breath. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to unload all this on you."

He shrugged a shoulder as he packed away his tricorder. "I asked and besides, it seems to me you're taking way too much onto yourself."

She winced. "Why does everyone keep telling me that?"

He raised an eyebrow, looking her over skeptically. "Because we're right."

TBC


	10. Chapter 10

The house seemed so empty without her, it might as well be abandoned. Khan had never wanted anything material for himself. He had once had a palace, but it meant nothing, both a requirement and a symbol of power and prestige. Now he had a small fleet, a whole solar system and means to take over technology beyond his time's wildest dreams, but none of that compared to the fact that his family was finally safe and that he had someone who turned a simple dwelling into a home. Carol's presence was everywhere around him, her perfume embedded in textile, her personal touches everywhere in the décor, her mark upon the colony's system and in every question about her from his friends.

Khan knew Carol was not leaving him. She was too honest of a person, not to tell him something like that face to face. But whatever she was keeping from him made her sound frayed, whenever they spoke, and was terrible enough for Kati to refuse to obey a direct order from him for the first time ever. Kati's refusal had been calm and polite and taken him aback to such an extent, that he had to ponder upon the appropriate response, once his old friend returned to the colony. He had half a mind to take the Vengeance to Earth and find out what was happening, but the danger that would pose to Menkar stayed his hand. He struggled with it every day, but he had to put his duty to his family over the call of his heart and the sharp niggling of concern gnawing at him.

The days ticked by in a blur, the memory of Carol floating beneath the surface of his mind, as he permuted and calculated, trying to gauge what his wife could be hiding from him from the few cryptic messages they had exchanged and her behavior during the last weeks they had been together. He mulled over the possibility that she was a prisoner of Starfleet, but if that had been true, Kati would have given him one of their alarm code-words. Besides, it was an open secret among them that Kati was in a relationship with a Starfleet admiral and she would have never made a connection with a man she could not trust. Also, though there was no love lost between him and the Federation, he recognized that their philosophy made a certain amount of sense and that honor, compassion and kindness could be found in abundance in the ranks of Starfleet. He should know better than anyone, since he had used that against them a few times. Only that no system was free of corruption and people often did the unthinkable under pressure.

That did not, however, ease the deep-seated hatred he felt for Carol's father. Only the awareness of the grief he would have caused her dulled the regret of his not killing him, when he had had the chance. It was paradoxical that Carol would not be in this unfortunate position, if he had. But the crux of the matter was that if he had, she would have never forgiven him.

# # #

The torrent storm swiped through the valley occupied by the colony, rising thick clouds of dust from the surrounding mountains. Cold rain drops mixed in with the wind, rapping against the sturdy walls of the buildings. All the windows were stuttered and the children were holed inside, but a few of his people still milled about, wrapped in thick cloaks. They were no longer strangers to the ravages of the local weather and had since learnt to work around them so life went on as usual. Khan himself stood on the terrace atop the assembly house watching over the city and its inhabitants, his thoughts swirling waves that mingled and coalesced against the barrier between emotion and reason.

He heard Zuleika's hurried steps behind him and whirled around to face her. She was uncommonly agitated.

"We have an incoming signal from the edge of the nebula." She paused to draw breath. "It's Carol's personal subspace frequency."

# # #

Carol was not used to be in anything but peak physical condition so the journey aboard the Yorkshire had been particular a kind of nightmare. She was going through what someone with sea sickness might experience during a maritime voyage. She was queasy and dizzy all the way and slept for unusually long hours. Never before had she been more grateful for Kati's friendship and unfaltering support. Of great help had been Captain Rodriguez as well. He had never shown any sign of unduly prejudice or wariness and had done everything in his power to make her stay as comfortable as possible. Doctor Heller, the CMO, had been equally professional, though there was only so much she could do, considering that she was working in the dark.

Captain Rodriguez had invited the both of them to share a meal with him and his superior officers on several occasions, called Kati "Madam" much to her amusement and posed her a few diplomatic questions about how she found their century. The ship's mission to the Pleiades was purely scientific so all of it was a matter of public record and both the captain and his first officer gladly shared the details with her, which made her nostalgic about her now abandoned career and about working with cutting edge technology under the best conditions towards attaining knowledge and doing research for the sheer pleasure of it. Although she did not regret her decision, she still felt wistful sometimes, struggling through the grueling conditions on Menkar, where every effort, and there was plenty of that to go around, had a concrete goal or was in response to an emergency. It appealed to her practicality, but every now and then she missed the spirit of exploration animating Starfleet.

Still she was relieved, when Rodriguez let them know that the Mutara Nebula was in view. A single shuttle emerged from the giant dust cloud to retrieve her and Kati, but Carol knew Khan. Obscured from the sensors by the nebula, the Vengeance was somewhere nearby. Her husband never took any chances. They parted ways with Captain Rodriguez in the transporter room. His goodbye to Kati was friendly and she responded in kind. He also promised to send Carol the results of his current research expedition, once they were finalized. Then the beaming process whisked them away.

Surely enough Khan was the one expecting them aboard the augment shuttle. His eyes were riveted to her the second she materialized inside, his pale pink lips falling open, but he said nothing merely striding over to her, and drew her into his arms. She hugged him back, her heart rhythm accelerating, and rested her head on his chest, eyes shut, relished the comfort and the safety she had been craving for a while now.

"My love," he whispered thickly in her hair and then pressed a kiss atop of her head.

Her hands bunched in his shirt at his back and she clung to him for a few moments longer. Once she told him the truth, it would take a while until they could remedy their relationship enough to receive such tenderness from him. She stood on her tiptoes to kiss him lightly on the lips. His eyes were glassy, so blue they appeared transparent, the gold freckles in them so brilliant, they seemed to be lit from within. His left hand framed her cheek, his thumb gently stroking around the corner of her eye. She shivered at the intimacy of the contact and leaned into the touch.

"You are ill," he said, distress washing over his features.

"No, I'm not," she replied quickly. "We'll talk at home."

He nodded. "Alright," he conceded, pecked her on the lips once more then released her.

Kati was hovering over the control console, her back turned to them, presumably to give them privacy. Khan did not so much as look at her, dismissing her with a curt tilt of his head, his jaw setting and his features schooling into a cold mask of authority. Something unpleasant stirred in the pit of Carol's stomach and she opened her mouth to speak, despite her previous promise to Kati, who caught her eye and shook her head no. Carol pressed her lips closed again without uttering a single syllable and warily slid in one of the available seats. Less than a minute later the shuttle floated away, delving into the nebula, parting the blue and purple waves, until it arrived at the Vengeance, looming dark and imposing against the multi-colored background.

# # #

The familiarity of her bedroom was a welcome sight and Carol allowed herself a sigh of relief. Though she wasn't showing yet, she still felt heavy, but she had had no dizzy spells since the bout of morning sickness, after waking up according to the Yorkshire's time. She sat on the edge of the bed and stretched her legs in front of her. Khan followed her inside, placed her voluminous luggage by her vanity piece and proceeded to unwrap himself from his favorite black overcoat, one that had repeatedly withstood the test of the planet's vicious climate. Speaking of which, a violent storm waged outside.

"Would you like something warm to drink?" he asked solicitously. "Are you hungry then?" he continued, when she shook her head no in response to his first question.

"Sit down," she said patting a spot on the plush cover next to her.

He did. His expression was hard to read, but his eyes were clouded with concern. Carol reached over and took his right hand in hers. She moistened her lips and swallowed past the lump forming in her throat.

"I know it was wrong of me to keep this from you and I am sorry, so very sorry." She squeezed his hand harder. "Khan... I am pregnant."

His fingers spasmed in her grip and his expression transformed entirely, switching from surprise to joy mounting all the way to the purest form of elation she had ever seen in him. Every trace of the leader and warrior melted off him. His shoulders sagged. His eyes widened. His lower lip trembled, as his mouth parted open. His face paled slightly, the lines marring it deepening. It never failed to strike her how he suddenly appeared age-old and raw, whenever the gate to his innermost and normally secret emotions burst apart.

He lifted her right hand to his lips and scrunching his eyes closed, he bent to pepper it with soft, reverent kisses. Wetness drizzled onto her skin and an answering tenderness reverberated within her. She used her free hand to stroke soothingly through his hair, the tips of her fingers lowering themselves to his nape, tapping lightly against his skin.

"We're going to have a daughter," she added, when she found her voice again.

Khan pulled her onto his lap, an arm wrapped securely around her waist. She looked up at him. His eyes were still wet and faintly red. Her own arms snaked around his neck and they kissed at first chastely, their lips moving together slowly. Her mouth opened under the insistent pressure of his and his tongue glided inside to caress past teeth, press against the roof of her mouth before touching hers. Her head was spinning, as warmth bloomed into her veins. Their kiss grew passionate and one of her hands moved lower to pat on his chest until she found the staccato of his heart-beat against her palm.

He broke the kiss to let her breathe. She was now panting, her lips tingling sweetly. He looked equally affected: his cheekbones were spattered with pink and his gaze was wondering erratically over the planes of her face. Dimly she realized his free hand rested on her stomach. She smiled and pressed her forehead against his.

"Are you alright? Do you need anything?" he asked.

She shook her head. "I am fine for now, but I arranged for a doctor with experience in trans-species pregnancies to attend me. She will be arriving to our space in three Menkar days." She straightened herself a bit, still curled up on his lap. "She is not Starfleet, but she is a Federation citizen. I know that's not a problem in itself, but if you have any objections, we can discuss it... ."

He pressed a finger over her lips, halting her speech. "It is your medic, Carol. The choice is yours exclusively."

She nodded and he withdrew his finger only to press his hand against the side of her face. There was pure adoration and wonder in his eyes, as he gazed at her, but instead of delighting her, it only ignited all of her accumulating guilt. "Don't you want to know when I found out?" she asked, reluctant to alter the spell of the moment, but aware that she had to address all the things that had gone unspoken between them.

His eyes clouded briefly. "On Nausicaa, before you left for Earth," he stated matter-of-factly.

Carol stared at the wall past his shoulder. "I'm aware this doesn't excuse my keeping something so big from you, but... ."

"No," he said firmly, drawing her attention back to him. There was a slight crease between his eye-brows, but the relaxed happiness of before had not washed off his face completely. "Whatever it is, it can wait until tomorrow. All I want for tonight is to be with you and rejoice. However, if it puts your mind at ease, you should know that, as far as I'm concerned, there is nothing to forgive on my part and whatever problem exists is not with our marriage, but within the boundaries of the political aspect of our relationship."

None of this served to put her mind at ease. On the contrary, it heightened some of her fears and doubts. Also, she wasn't so sure this whole issue wasn't personal as well as professional. Their relationship had never been entirely private. Before her father's arrest, her status as a de facto hostage had come between them, now it was the matter of her position on the colony. But she was tired after her journey and grateful to be home and she didn't wish to burden him further, when he was so obviously overjoyed with the news. She did share his desire to simply be together and forget the world if only for one, long Menkar night. Besides, it was probably best to play it safe and not put additional stress on her baby, especially without an appropriate doctor on hand. She stretched her neck to kiss him again. "Alright," she murmured. "We'll talk tomorrow."

Khan lay on his back on the bed and drew her with him so that she was splayed on his chest. They threaded their legs together and for a while, they just held each other, one of his hands combing gently through her hair, lulling her into a semi-hypnotic somewhere state between pleasant reverie and the lassitude that came right before sleep.

"Can you hear her heart?" she asked.

"Not from here," he replied in that mesmerizing, thick baritone of his that only served to put her under even further.

He rolled her on her back and slid down her body to flatten his ear against her clothed stomach. "I can hear it now," he told her, his voice reverberating into her skin.

She grinned blissfully and stroked his head, when he rested it in the region of her waist. "According to the genome scan, she has your eyes," she said.

TBC


	11. Chapter 11

Carol lounged on the couch in her living-room, wrapped in a blanket, with a hot cup of peppermint tea, as she nibbled on a ginger biscuit from the batch Ling had sent her. Khan had let her sleep in, during which he had he had presumably put up a banner with news of her pregnancy. It was still raining outside, rapping against the roof and the large window occupying the entirety of the wall overlooking the rest of the colony. Her view of the small city was ashen-tinged and dreary under the metallic skies of Menkar. The buildings were cloaked in milky vapor, spreading in flimsy threads amid colorful walls and vegetation. The fire roaring in the room's small fireplace was a real one. Since the planet was, by no means, lacking in wood, for now it made sense to blend modern heating with more rustic means to save on the essentials, until they could acquire more sustainable technologies. She didn't complain, however. The fire had its charm, casting glowing orange shadows on the walls and adding to the meager daylight streaming from the large concave windows.

She had had a rough morning, but she was getting better, her stomach at last settling, a sweet lassitude spreading through her limbs. Khan had been positively doting through it all, and he had been the one to install her so nicely in the living-room. Then he had been called away by Joaquin to tend to an emergency on the colony in the aftermath of the storm that had raged throughout the entire previous night. She was concerned and wondered how their Orion neighbors had fared. The tempest had been one of the most violent they had had in a while and given the instability of the local weather, that was saying something. Despite her worries, she felt so warm and safe in her home, that after her less than pleasant stint on Earth and the uneasy journey back, she could not help but indulge a little.

When Khan returned, she had been almost nodding off. "How is the water reclamation system?" she asked.

"Easily repairable," he said calmly. "How are you feeling?"

"Much better. Was anyone on the Orion settlement hurt?"

He pried the now empty tea mug from her fingers and placed it on the nearby coffee table. His lips curved in an indulgent, barely there smile. "Not unless you count the damaged roofs." He bent and brushed his lips against her forehead. "Are you hungry?"

Her stomach flipped unpleasantly in response and she shook her head no, still surreptitiously grabbing another biscuit. Ling had been right – they had helped with the nausea. She bit into it, the taste of ginger exploding on her tongue. She chewed carefully, as he seated himself in the armchair across the table from her. His posture was a cross between that which he presented the world and the less aloof one he showed only her and his family and even to them, not always. His back was stick straight, but his gaze was soft and affectionate, his long, painful history etched into the lines of his face together with the baggage of their uneven relationship.

Her gaze drifted from the biscuit in her hand to him. "This is personal," she began. "And political. You used your position to order Kati to reveal something I told her in confidence, as a friend."

His expression hardened. "No, Carol, I did not. On Menkar, you are not only my wife, but also an invaluable asset to the colony. I did not ask Kati about her friend, I asked her about a trained former Starfleet officer with weapons' expertise, in-dept knowledge of current interstellar affairs and the ability to erect an entire ground defense system with the barest of resources."

"Why didn't you ask me directly then?"

His burning gaze was bearing into her skull. "Because you wouldn't have lied to me, if you were not absolutely determined about it. You would have refused to answer, but Kati had never done so before. What I told you last night is true: this isn't personal."

She snapped the biscuit in two, biding her time, stuck a half into her mouth and threw the other bit back on the plate. Khan did not press for a quick answer, not because he was exercising patience, but because he was thinking strategically again, calculating as though he was on a battle field. Something she had read in Sarina Kaur's diary surfaced to the forefront of her mind and unsettled her. Every cell in an augment's body had been bred for war, but the genetic engineering had been in its infancy in the 20th century and its results had been all over the map. However, they had struck gold with him: the perfect leader, the military genius and the ultimate protector all into one person. Only that there was no gene for free will and he had chosen to protect the only family he knew. And even humanity from itself. It was why he had attempted to built a peaceful and fair state and had not committed any atrocities. When that had been lost, he had turned his single-minded determination onto assuring the safety of his family, which had created his mindset of him alone against the rest of the world. And now he had added her to his exclusive list her as well. Her and their unborn baby. But there were drawbacks that came with this unbound devotion, which made him prone to strike thoughtlessly in revenge or in anger.

"I don't trust you," she choked out, catching him by surprise. He had not expected that from her. At his wounded look, she hastened to continue. "I trust that you love me, that you won't mistreat me and that you'll never cheat on me, but I can't trust what you'll do, if and when I'm in danger or hurt."

His hands dug into the arms of his chair, knuckles white. "Would it be easier for you, if I loved you less?" he rasped.

"Frankly... I don't know, but as much as the thought of it terrifies me, I am grateful you would do whatever it takes for our daughter... for us, because I'll keep drawing these lines. That will never change, but that doesn't mean I love the two of you any less."

He leaped to his feet and moved fast as lightening to come and sit on the edge of the couch, next to her. They hugged and she rested her head on his shoulder.

"I know," he assured her, his voice hoarse.

He raised her head to look him in the eye. They were only a breath away.

"I should have told you," she said. "Every day I almost did, but I couldn't, because if I had, you would have crossed the border into Federation territory and I had to protect Menkar... even from you."

Shock washed over his features. A single tear leaked out of the corner of his left eye. She had never seen such raw vulnerability in him before. She had seen him overcome by emotion, worried or even hesitant before, but never humbled. It was humbling for her as well to notice that she had underestimated the depth of his commitment to his family. Humbling and concern-worthy that even he would have not trusted himself not to make the mistake of violating the terms of his deal with the Federation and putting everyone he held dear at risk as a result.

"Thank you," he whispered fervently, covering her face with tender kisses.

"Wait," she wheezed, pushing at his right shoulder, even as his hands unwrapped her from the blankets. "We need boundaries... ."

He arched an eyebrow. "Right now?"

"No," she said and kissed him, briefly pulling his lower lip into her mouth. "We have time." They had all the time in the world.

# # #

Carol was right. He had enough self-awareness to comprehend that much. He had been fighting all his life and the one time he had attempted to build for peace, it had ended with him being attacked and losing everything. It would take a while until their position was strong enough for them to be completely safe in the Ceti Alpha system, but they had a chance, a very real chance at something permanent here. It was high time he started to build for peace again. He poured water in two glasses and handed one to her. It was melted ice from polar cap in the south. Carol was right – it was indeed something special: it was as clear as the purest crystal and tasted like the freshest spring water he had ever drunk.

They had relocated to their shared home office. Carol propped herself on the edge of his desk and sipped at the water with a smile. "I was about to suggest it before the incursion of the Orion Syndicate."

Khan pulled a chair for himself. "A structure," he finished the thought for her.

"We need to know where we stand with each other and where the new settlements stand in relation with us."

"Regardless of how many documents we draw and how clear of a hierarchy we establish, the lines between private and political will continue to shift and collide within our relationship," he cautioned.

She frowned, tapping her index fingernail against the edge of her glass. "It did occur to me. After all, it's not likely that we'll ever be fully objective when it comes to each other."

"What about trust? Do you trust me as a commander?"

"In nine out of ten cases," she fired quickly.

"Then in that one case, I will trust you to stop me short of placing you all in danger. By any means necessary and without any consequences for our personal relationship."

She nodded, eying him carefully. "Alright. We will have to think of a way to formalize that later. Now it's my turn to ask: do you trust me?"

"Absolutely," he replied without hesitation. It was only the truth.

"Flattered as I am, it's not wise from a political point of view."

"Then we require a third party to even out the balance," he said reasonably.

She licked her lips, seemingly vacillating. "I agree. However, this third party can't be a someone, but a something."

"A legislating body? I created one before and have been considering doing so again. So I suppose the next word to pass your lips will be elections."

She tilted her head slightly to the side. "It's not a curse word."

He chuckled and took another sip of his water. "Somebody else in your place would request power, jewelry, Tholian silk perhaps."

"I already have power," she corrected him.

He scoffed. "No, you don't. You have a responsibility. As you know, I am constantly aware of my surroundings even in my sleep. I can sense you sometimes at night lying awake next to me." He leaned forward in his seat. "Worrying, undoubtedly puzzling over our future and your duty to the continued existence of the colony."

She put her glass next to her on the desk, avoiding his eyes and looking caught. "This isn't the place one comes looking for riches and influence."

"Ruling in Hell is still ruling."

"Maybe, but Hell could no longer hold us in our bounds," she said meaningfully, quoting from _Paradise Lost_.

Their gazes met and held. He smiled.

# # #

_Two months later _

Kati hated conceding defeat, especially to a vegetable of all things, but it seemed she would have to throw in the towel: tomatoes would never grow on Menkar. The comm system chirped loudly, attracting her attention to the office at the back of her main green-house. She went to answer the call, shaking her hair free of her messy ponytail as she did. Surely enough, given that she wore threadbare, stained clothes, it was Christopher. Still she was glad to see him and greeted him with a wide grin. She had not met him in person since she and Carol had left Earth, but they had kept in touch via subspace. Though he could not give her any specifics, he had been having a difficult time at work lately and it showed in his nearly permanent grim and sober expression and the dark shadows that had taken residence under his often red-rimmed eyes.

"I'm going to speak to Carol next, but I thought that under the circumstances, she could use all the friends she has."

Kati winced. "No! Chris, she is in no state to leave our planet right now."

"I wouldn't have asked her to, anyway," he assured her. "And that's not why I contacted you, but as you might've guessed, this is about her father." He paused to take a deep breath that, to her sensitive ears, sounded suspiciously like a sigh. "Alexander Marcus will be indicted again. Since he is no longer a member of Starfleet, this time the trial will be civilian and public. The charges are grave, ranging from conspiracy to commit genocide to manufacturing illegal weaponry. There will be a scandal and we'll have to disclose Carol's location, if the press asks."

"Then I guess it's a good thing she's far away from it all." She shifted uneasily in her seat. "Unlike you, might I add. Your former mentor is disgraced... again."

"I'll be fine," he insisted.

"When the dust settles, why don't you pay me a visit on Menkar?"

"Kati, I don't think that would be wise."

She held up a hand. "I didn't say to bring up the rest of the fleet with you... or even your uniform, for that matter. Just Chris Pike coming to the home of someone who is more than a friend for the first time."

"More than a friend?" he asked, latching onto the truly important with his usual acumen.

She looked straight at him. "More than a friend!"

# # #

The assembly hall was packed. For now it was just his fellow augments and Carol, who was sitting at the front and looked more formal than Khan had ever seen her since her return to Menkar. Her golden hair was pinned in a French twist and her baby bump was hidden behind a simple, black sheath dress. She was gazing at him with luminous eyes. He smiled at her and stepped up to address his people.

TBC


	12. Chapter 12

_Captain's log, stardate 51408.6. We have picked up Admiral Alynna Nechayev on Starbase 32. She will brief Commander William Riker and me on a mission of high urgency, which has caused the Enterprise's most recent course diversion._

Sitting next to his second-in-command in the briefing room, the captain of the Federation's current flagship, the Enterprise NCC-1701-E, reminded himself that there were worse things than a meeting with Admiral Nechayev: a confrontation with the Borg, the onslaught of mixed news from the ongoing Dominion War, Captain Picard's Day every year. Still those thoughts were a poor consolation, as his superior officer moved her cold gaze from him to Commander Riker. The silence between them was deafening.

"Captain Picard, you are ordered to take the Enterprise to the Ceti Alpha system." Picard's mouth fell open and he was about to speak, but the admiral ignored him. "We have been in contact with the Augment government in an attempt to open negotiations for a future alliance against the Dominion."

"By the Augment government, you mean Sarina Singh?" Riker interrupted.

Nechayev shot him a dirty look. "And their General Gathering. I assume you don't know much about the Augments."

"I was under the impression that nobody in the Federation did, Admiral," Picard said. "After all, we have been co-existing in total isolation from each for over a century."

"Yes, and in that century, they tamed a barely M-class planet, transformed the Ceti Alpha system into a fortress, built one of the best-armed fleets in two quadrants and fended an attack from the Tholian Assembly, which they later occupied. They are currently extending towards El-Adrel and the Pleadies Cluster in addition to being a foremost source of tritatium and kemocite and the second most popular contraband drink in Starfleet besides Romulan ale," she finished with a lopsided smile.

Picard kept his poker face intact. The exquisite Menkarian water and even Menkarian wine were rather popular amid the crew of the Enterprise as well. Since formally the Federation had no relations with the Augment state, they were both illegal.

"Neutrality has served them well so far. Why would they enter the Dominion War now?" Riker wanted to know.

It was a valid question, an opinion Nechayev seemed to share that opinion, as a rare look of satisfaction crossed her face. "The fact that the Federation is shunning them has made other states wary of dealing with them. They want a seat at the table of interstellar affairs and frankly, we need their ships and as unsettling as I'm sure we all find the notion, we could use the expertise of someone whose rise to power resembles that of the Changelings who founded the Dominion... even if that someone is Khan Noonien Singh."

Picard shifted uneasily in his seat. "Rumor had it he had withdrawn from public life completely."

The admiral nodded and pressed a key on the portable hologenerator on the table. The holoimagine of a blond young woman dressed in a 23rd century Starfleet formal uniform with lieutenant insignia sprang between them. "He gradually transferred all his formal duties to his daughter, when his wife, Carol Marcus, the only child of disgraced Admiral Marcus, died in 2332 and fully retired a decade later, having lived in complete isolation ever since." She fiddled with the device once more and the imagine changed to that of a striking women appearing to be in her mid-fifties with _alabaster skin, delicately-drawn features with prominent cheekbones, long, flaxen and silver hair and kaleidoscopic eyes. "This is Sarina Singh, Khan and Carol Marcus' first born child and High Princess of the Augment Hegemony."_

_"She looks very young for someone born in the 23rd century," Riker remarked. _

_Nechayev smiled fractionally. "She was allegedly born in 2263 so she's a 111 years old, but the Augments age more slowly than we do and live twice as long. You will be negotiating directly with her and a representative of the Gathering. We have very little information on her. She isn't married, which is rare among her kind, and is completely dedicated to her political career. We know even less about Khan's other two children, who were born after Carol Marcus' Caitian doctor devised a way around the genetic incompatibilities preventing hybridization between humans and Augments, but they occupy no official position within the state or have any political function."_

_"Do we know how extensive Sarina Singh's powers are?" Picard asked next._

_The admiral's expression grew severe. "Very. While the Gathering is the legislative forum, she has veto power over each new law, controls all executive functions and foreign policy and is supreme military commander. She appoints ten percent of the members of the Gathering herself, but the remaining majority is elected through universal vote. Also she personally oversees the national genetic engineering program."_

_"I suppose it's not surprising that DNA-resequencing is legal there," Riker interjected._

_"Citizens are publicly encouraged in that direction, but the procedure is ultimately a personal decision. I am as wary as you are, gentlemen, to speak on behalf of an autocracy, but the Princess is not all-powerful. In fact, she is subjected to a complicated system of accountability so I cannot stress enough the importance of being willing to compromise in order to have a treaty __that the Gathering will not reject."_

_Riker frowned and leaned forward. "Are we expecting any unreasonable demands?"_

_The admiral's eyebrows went up. "I doubt it. They want a way out of isolation and we're willing to provide it, however you have an extended mandate to negotiate on behalf of the Federation short of cessation of territory. I trust I don't have to tell you how dire the situation on the front is and how badly we need new allies." _

_Picard grew uncomfortable again. "I assume they know that as well."_

_For the first time since the start of the meeting, Nechayev appeared to be less than poised and confident. "Political isolation does not extend to espionage and the Augment Hegemony is rumored to have cultivated one of the efficient network of spies in the explored space. They are also in the habit of conducting raids against the Orion Syndicate and other privateers, none of which are famous for the ability to keep their secrets under pressure. Assume they know everything, but tell them nothing, nevertheless."_

_"Understood," Picard confirmed. _

_"One more thing," she said quickly, nearly speaking over him. "Do try to complete this mission without anyone from the crew marrying one of the locals," she added emphatically and looking straight at Riker. _

_They knew what she meant: Carol Marcus had not been the only one to spend her life with an Augment. Admiral Christopher Pike, a most respected 23rd century officer, who had a medal named in his honor, had retired to Menkar, the capital planet of the then emerging Augment Hegemony and married a member of Khan's entourage. It was a confusing note in the biography of the mentor of the legendary James T. Kirk, but not more so than the complicated tangling with the Augments of Carol Marcus, whose short-lived Starfleet career had faded into obscurity compared to the scandals both her father's illegal activities and her own unclear role in the construction of the Hegemony had elicited._

_# # #_

_Though the flagship had a regular captain, it maintained an office by the bridge for the supreme commander. Sarina sat behind her desk, surrounded by images of her parents and of the extended families of her two younger brothers, and combed through the most recent reports on the Federation and Starfleet. The door chimed. _

_"Open," she commanded and the door parted to allow in Christopher, the only son of the woman Sarina had called her entire childhood "auntie Kati". Christopher was now a member of the Gathering and her assistant at the negotiations with the captain of the Enterprise._

_"The Enterprise has just entered the Mutara Nebula," he told her. "You'd think the Federation would be more creative in naming its flagship."_

_She smiled, speaking as she stood and picked up her white Tholian silk shawl to drape it around her shoulders. "I'd comment, but I really have no room to, since my father named our own flagship after a whaleship from a 19th century classic American novel, a ship which ended up destroyed by the very whale it chased."_

_He chuckled. "Well, at least, it should make for a good conversation starter with Captain Picard."_

From the doorway, she encompassed the imagines on her desk in one last look, her gaze lingering on one of their parents taken while her mother had still been pregnant with her. Sarina had visited her father before leaving Menkar, as they both estimated that the Federation would like to pick his brain about tactics for the war they were currently embroiled in, and they had both agreed that she would concede, as long as it got them what they wanted. One thing was certain: they could not allow the Dominion to triumph in the battle it currently waged against the Alpha and Beta quadrants. One empire of inestimable military power put them at risk. However, joining the conflict so late in the game offered them the ideal edge to topple the awkward triumvirate of the Federation, the Klingon and Romulan Empire and skew the local balance of power in their favor.

Sarina smiled. Rome was not built in a day and time was always on a Augment's side.

~ the end ~


End file.
